Hi, I’m excited to welcome the Caroline Family Health Team as a new client of Clover Road. I’ll be rebranding their new facility on 3305 Harvester Road in Burlington, Ontario. In the upcoming weeks I’ll post results of our collaboration and rebranding.
Caroline Family Health Team is a state-of-the art, full-service family medical facility. They have recently moved into a remarkable space and now require new branding and signage.
Ciao,
Robert Scozzari
Hi, have you heard the term crowdsourcing? Maybe you have, or not. Derived from the word Outsourcing, It's when companies use the Internet to gather huge crowds of people and have them solve a problem. Instead of outsourcing to a company, a task is left to the will of the people or a crowd. It's pretty much like when a company has a contest to name it's newest product, and the general public submits names and votes on the best one, in the end, deciding the brand name of the new product.
Well, that's what Kraft did with a new, more spreadable version of it's famous Vegemite. Boy, did things go wrong. I myself, have never had the pleasure of Vegemite on toast. Nor am I sure if I ever would want to. But if I were to ever find myself on a vacation in the friendly Australia, perhaps I would at least give it a try.
So here is what happened. They held this contest to name a new version of Vegemite. This new version of Vegemite is more spreadable as it is mixed with cream cheese. The contest happened. Can you guess what the winning name was? This was a name that was chosen by the fans and voted as the number one name.
The name was, "iSnack 2.0"
Wow, that name sure sucked. Mmmmm… Lets have some toast with iSnack two point-oh-on it. Yea, it bombed. The Australian media and press and blogosphere had a Field-day with it. Eventually Kraft rolled back the brand and started the whole process all over again, and rightfully so.
So what happened the second time around? The second time, I think they got it a bit better. After the epic fail, they finally came up with a new name.
Vegemite Cheesybite
Now that, is a great name. You don't get a more descriptive and easy to remember name than that. Well, OK, it's better than iSnack 2.0.
Well for one, It's not always a good idea to run a contest to get cheap creative work, while it may get you some publicity, you are trusting the fate or your business and brand in the hands of people who do not have a full scope if what is involved. This little adventure from Kraft, probably cost the company a few millions. I always recommend hiring a professional that is experienced in what you need, whether that's naming a product or creating a poster or what-ever you may need.
Aol's new logo? Clipart?
If you haven't heard, AOL has rebranded with a new logo, and boy, what a miss.
So what you have above is the new logo for AOL, or should I say, Aol. Yea, that's right, Aol. First of all, they also added a period, so I cannot refer to them in the middle of a sentence, I can only refer to them at the end of a sentence. I'll do my best.
They also lowercased the "o" and the "l". I guess they wanted to take away some emphasis from the online component? Really, how irrelevant is the fact that they are, "online". Everyone is online now. So I think that was a good idea.
And for some reason, they have a changing background of stock images. A goldfish, rocker hand sign, blue swirly thingy, pink smokey cloud, crazy exploding head, green scribble. I have one comment, Wtf? Those of you who don't know what that means, sorry, I can't elaborate.
Wow, I don't know where to start commenting. For a brand in as serious trouble as Aol. (Shoot, ended my sentence prematurely!) For a brand as troubled as they are, considering how irrelevant ISP's are now, there is serious rethinking that is needed to be done for the brand of Aol. The logo says nothing to me about who they are or what they are doing. I'm very curious to see how they position themselves in the next few months.
If they don't reposition themselves to be relevant and useful to the new Internet community, I wouldn't be surprised if they are gone in the next year or so.
I see the logo as just the type treatment and the backgrounds simply as usage specifications. While I think they missed completely, I do like the dynamic of colours on the multiple of items.
It's all in the positioning. To position themselves, they need to become relevant, because without relevance, the logo is irrelevant. And finally, to be relevant, they seriously need to innovate. If they simply feed us what all the other websites are feeding us, as in Aol.Classifieds or Aol.Personals, big deal. We have that already They need to give us something new. We'll see what they do next year. Innovate or Die Aol.
Let me know what you think. Leave a comment below.
Ciao,
Robert Scozzari RGD
Here are some free guides and workbooks to help you brand your business right now.
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They shoulda’ called me first: Williams Fresh Cafe
I recently was driving past my local Williams Coffee Pub and noticed something. It was no longer a Williams Coffee Pub, but a Williams Fresh Cafe. They actually have rebranded, good for you Williams! Congratulations on your rebranding.
Old Williams Coffee Pub
New Williams Fresh Cafe
For those of you that are not familiar, Williams is a local cafe and eatery. I think their greatest asset is the free internet that they offer. This has allowed them to become the local meeting place for business folk all around. If you were to go into any Williams during work hours, you are always going to find countless laptops opened and numerous meetings taking place. The old branding and positioning was focussed around the cafe experience. It was important and a good strategy ten years ago, but that time has passed.
Lately, I've noticed that the food selections have been getting better, and healthier. Just the other day, I had a lunch meeting at Williams and enjoyed an excellent Minestrone Soup and California Salad. They were both excellent and I would eat there again anytime.
Focused on being a coffee pub, they were fighting with Starbucks and Tim Hortons, with coffee which was mediocre at best, that wasn't a battle that they could win.
With the rebranding and repositioning, it looks like they want to be known as a healthy food choice as well as a great place to sit and meet friends. Overall, I think the new repositioning is fantastic and believe it will help them to grow.
They should have called me first
Overall, I like the new look and the new positioning. I think it's clean and refreshing, which serves them very well if they want to now be know for fresh and healthy food. I have one critique however. That leaf that blends into the word "Fresh". Its too… too clip art. It does not serve well as an icon that only Williams can use. If you were to separate the leaf and put it beside the millions of other green leaves that are in logos all over the world, would it stand out as being Williams' leaf? I don't think so. Unfortunately, I think that leaves them with an icon that is totally dependent on being a part of the entire logo to be identified as Williams.
Had they created an icon that was theirs and theirs only, it would have been better for them. Look at other food chains, McDonalds' golden arches or East Side Mario's Statue of Liberty with the Tomato. When you see those icons, there is no disputing where they belong. Williams could have benefited with something a bit more unique. But they didn't call me, so all I can do is blog about it.
What do you think?
Do you like the new rebranding and positioning ? Do you like the new logo? Let me know.
Ciao