Brands Create Customers

Several decades ago, Steve Jobs recruited Pepsi’s John Sculley to Apple by telling him that at Apple he could change the world, while at Pepsi all he could do was sell sugar water.

Fast forward 25 years. Apple under Jobs has been changing the world left and right, having just reinvented the music and mobile phone industries.

Meanwhile, over at Pepsi, the decades of sugar water may have finally taken their toll. The company has invested heavily in a controversial new Pepsi logo (left), that may not add to Pepsi’s iconic stature. In fact, the new logo may serve to undermine Pepsi’s strategic identity.

An identity less iconic?

As stated by Pepsi, the goal of the new design was a “quantum leap” that would transform the soft drink category, and define Pepsi as a “cultural leader.”

So far, the new design has generated its share of skeptics. Some thought it borrowed a bit too freely from the Obama campaign logo. Others saw it as a mashup of Pac Man and a Smiley. On a more fundamental level, there’s concern that the new logo may actually diminish the Pepsi brand, creating a Pepsi identity that is decidedly less iconic.

Consider Tony Spaeth’s measured comments in Ad Age:

It’s tilting the whole brand presentation from a classic expression of uniqueness and quality into something that is much more humorous, almost flippant. It worries me that it is less durable, less permanent and classic. It comes across as more of a campaign idea than an enduring brand expression.

I think Tony is on to something quite profound when he notes that the new logo “comes across as more of a campaign idea than an enduring brand expression.” I would add that the new logo may represent a retreat from identity for Pepsi–with long-term brand consequences.

When campaign identity absorbs company identity

Companies traditionally anchor their identities on the core values that create excellence in their products and services. However, companies with products a few molecules above a commodity may find it hard to develop such core identity anchors. Instead, they may gradually slip into advertising-driven identities. This happens because such identities are the apparent fast track to profit, and because media campaigns are considered essential to product success. The company thus outsources its identity to the package and the pitch.

The paramount danger in this shift is that the company becomes less capable of creating value with its core identity. Brand strategy can become static and one-dimensional as the core identity recedes. In time, the company “brand” becomes a brand of advertising. The brand is reduced to messaging–instead of becoming a customer platform for value creation and value innovation.

Exposing the brand to iconic mockery

In companies where media campaigns drive the brand, the logo and related identity elements are often expressly designed to be “campaignable.”  They’re made to play on packaging, in TV spots, in web animations, etc. In short order, the needs of tactical campaigns  trump the needs of strategic identity.  Moreover, campaignable identities are typically shallow. They’re stylized sales stimulants. They’re designed as part of a persuasion package, instead of being identities shaped in a shared context with customers, above and beyond the sale.

Because they’re shallow, campaignable identities can easily expose themselves to iconic mockery. Lawrence Yang’s takeoff on the new Pepsi logo (below) may become  more iconic than the original. If the new logo can be seen as the bloated, bulging belly of a Pepsi drinker, it’s the real Pepsi identity that pays the price.

And now, for something “Breathtaking”

Everyone has by now seen the snarky Gawker semi-exposé, “Breathtaking” document reveals Pepsi logo is pinnacle of entire universe. Read the whole document for yourself. As a  design exploratory the document is perfectly fine, the kind of thing to spark a concept meeting. What’s troubling is that it often seems formulated as a sales pitch, full of its own hype, as if a new kind of Pepsi identity is being sold back to Pepsi–by a media campaign larger than Pepsi itself.

That would be a bit strange–and hardly iconic.

Images:

Top: Pepsi

Bottom: Lawrence Yang

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 22nd, 2009 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Brand Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.