For every barrel of oil that continues to spill into the ocean in the Gulf, BP’s brand equity continues to exponentially disintegrate. Which is a real shame for a corporate giant that had hired the great creative minds of Landor and Ogilvy to design and launch what is now one of the most ubiquitous brands in the world, with their iconic green identity. Ten years and one huge catastrophe later, the brand has gone from green to covered in oil, quite literally. People are upset, and have taken things into their own hands. Greenpeace launched a contest to rebrand BP by giving people the logo to do with what they please. You can see the results here.
I have mixed feelings about this. The designer part of me thinks that it is inappropriate and offensive what Greenpeace is doing. Who are they to release the logo file to the general public, just for them to butcher it? But then the other part of me, thinks that the brand is all but dead, there is no way that if they survive as a company, that they will actually keep the same brand identity. This logo contest is a demonstration of people protesting what is going on, it is a creative way for them to express their frustration and disappointment with BP’s handling of things. Every day there is news of either more setbacks or other equally depressing news that an entire ecosystem is slowly being destroyed due to negligence and greed. I don’t know whether all of their PR people have quit or just have no idea how to handle this, but the lack of sincerity and apology is distressing. And their CEO certainly isn’t helping matters either.
We live in a digital age, where news spreads in less then 140 characters. People have jumped onto the virtual protest bandwagon and are using digital media in new and savvy ways. Let this be a lesson in corporate responsibility, that if you let bad things happen, people may very well take your brand into their own hands.
The other week, United Airlines and Continental Airlines announced a merger. This deal has been in the works for many years now, but they have finally merged to create the world’s largest carrier. Good news for both of them, unfortunately bad news for their respective logos and brands. Instead of taking the time and expense to create a new identity to represent this merger, they instead took their two very different logos and literally combined them into one. The result is disappointing to say the least, making the design community sigh collectively with frustration; that a multi-billion dollar company doesn’t have the foresight to put the time and energy into a new brand.