London Logo Design Blog » Branding

Popular Gin Brand Gets Creative in London

Logo Design Company London — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 12:02:16 +0000

If you are a lover of gin and other fine spirits, you are probably familiar with the brand Bombay Sapphire. This gin has a distinctive blue colour and a recognizable brand that have made it popular in the UK and indeed throughout the world. However, Bombay Sapphire is determined to keep its place at the top of the gin market and is doing so by sponsoring fun branding events throughout the world.

The first instalment of this marketing campaign took place in London not too long ago. Bombay Sapphire kicked off their “Infused with Imagination” campaign by projecting a rainbow cascade of colours onto the Battersea Power Station in London. Because the event took place at night, the projections were visible from miles around and were reflected on the waters of the Thames. The changing colours were based on the iconic Rubik’s Cube, and the show ended with the hues morphing into the familiar blue associated with the drink. This is just one of many whisky events planned for the UK.

This is certainly an imaginative way to promote a brand and ties in directly to the marketing message. Although Bombay Sapphire has a somewhat old fashioned logo design and a brand with a long history, it is attempting to stay popular by staying relevant. This marketing campaign is aimed directly at young adults, many of whom have a taste for spirits and are still deciding on lifelong favourites.

More events will be held throughout the world, all of them taken from suggestions on the company’s Facebook page. In fact, this event itself was the result of a Facebook fan competition held this December, submitted by Albanian Bombay Sapphire fan Erjola Veliaj.

Imagination is the focus of this marketing campaign and even the new Bombay Sapphire brand. As such, the brand will be encouraging fans to suggest imaginative ways for the company to promote itself. A contest is currently being held in the States to come up with a similar event for the American market. In addition, Bombay Sapphire has an on-going collaboration with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons’ RUSH Philanthropic Foundation.

This event was certainly beautiful, but did it build the brand? Unfortunately, because this series of events is going to be designed by fans rather than graphic designers and event coordinators, they may not be as successful as the brand hopes. While everybody loves a contest (especially the winners), handing your brand to the amateurs is not always an effective idea. Considering the expense involved in the colour display in London, it may not be a cost-effective idea either.

Reaching out to fans via Facebook is an excellent strategy for the generation that Bombay Sapphire is trying to reach, however. In the end, this marketing campaign may indeed win the brand plenty of young, drinking fans and inspire lifetime loyalties simply because of the venue. It just goes to show that you must be creative in order to be successful on the modern business world.

BP in Hot Seat Once Again

Logo Design Company London — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 07:55:51 +0000

Is there any UK business less popular than BP? We think probably not. The 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill has made the British Petroleum name and logo design synonymous with ecological disaster. Now a report from Swiss company Transocean, owner of the rig involved in the spill, places blame for the incident squarely on BP.

Of course Transocean is partially motivated by the civil suits and criminal charges that may be filed against BP and other companies involved in the disaster, but this is hardly good press for BP. They have already been the subject of endless negative media exposure and even a fake BP logo design contest sponsored by an environmental advocacy group.

When media disaster strikes it can be difficult to decide how to respond, even if your brand disaster is less devastating. This is why it is so crucial to develop a disaster plan for your business, however small it may be. You need to make the important decisions now, while there is no pressure.

In BP’s case, their method of managing the disaster has been to accept responsibility, compensate victims, and speak openly. This, however, is not always the best strategy. If the tragedy had been less public, a different strategy might have been effective.

Your brand disaster policy will have to leave flexibility for dealing with unique situations as well. However, it can identify things like: policies on employees speaking to media, identification of an official spokesperson, and alternate meeting spots in case your regular store or place of business is not available. You should also take the time to teach yourself critical skills such as how to write a press release.

This should not be a difficult or time consuming task. After all, there is a good chance that, with careful management, you can avoid attracting negative press. Nonetheless, spending a few spare hours developing a plan can make it easier and less damaging to deal with any potential problems. It is insurance that will protect your business in the unlikely event of brand disaster.

While BP is taking responsibility for their role in the disaster, Transocean and other involved companies are not. This can be an advantage or a disadvantage. While some people may believe the claims of innocence, it also can be interpreted as shirking responsibility. On the other hand, BP’s statements accepting responsibility can be used against them in the courts as a confession of sorts. Meanwhile, most impartial third parties, such as the United States Coast Guard, have stated that the blame can be assigned to all of the companies involved, not just the most visible and publically well-known.

While it is important to have a plan for dealing with brand disaster, you also should take precautions in ensuring that your business is entirely safe and that your employees are treated well. This oil spill was not a random event, but rather the result of inadequate safety precautions and a laissez-faire attitude toward environmental impact. Don’t let this happen to your UK business!

Samsung’s Olympic Logo Design

Logo Design Company London — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 16:42:01 +0000

With the Royal Wedding over and done, there is yet another event that offers promise for UK companies hoping to make an impression: the upcoming London 2012 Olympics. Almost every major corporation in the UK has found a way to tie into the sporting event. The latest Olympic brand and logo comes from mobile phone giant Samsung, which has unveiled a new logo design that celebrates the event while publicizing Samsung’s role as sponsor of the Olympic Torch Relay.

The new logo design features a golden phone with arms outstretched. The London 2012 logo design (the same one that has gotten a great deal of negative press) is on the screen of the telephone, along with Samsung’s company logo and the words ‘Olympic Torch Relay Presenting Partner’. While this would not be a good ‘everyday’ logo, it is fun and appropriate for the sporting event that it represents.

The company has also created a new strapline to complement their Olympic partner brand: Everyone’s Olympic Games. This is intended to give a friendly, inclusive feeling and to stylistically match the open, outstretched arms seen in the logo design. According to company press releases, this Olympic brand is an open invitation to potential UK customers.

What kind of invitation? While this sponsorship should increase UK sales, this is not really the point of the marketing scheme. According to Samsung’s head of global sports marketing, Gyehyun Kwon, the new logo and the increased marketing efforts are not an attempt to add to the company’s rather small UK sales, but to increase brand awareness in the nation. While Samsung is one of the world’s top mobile telephone providers, it nonetheless has had a very low brand awareness in the UK.

Olympic sponsorship is one way to raise awareness. In addition, Olympic sponsorship is not new to the company, which has been associated with the Olympics in some capacity for nearly 25 years. Samsung is also the Olympic Games’ Official Wireless Telecommunications Partner and has been so since 1998.

Samsung is putting a lot of marketing energy into its Olympic brand. Not only has the company developed a special event logo design (known as the SOVIS, or Samsung Olympic Visual Identity System), they have contracted with football player David Beckham to be ‘brand ambassador’ of the London 2012 Samsung brand use.

How is your business celebrating the 2012 London Olympics? While sponsoring major events is too expensive to be a realistic part of the average UK business’s marketing plan, there is no reason not to make Olympic fever a part of your business in some way.

However, it is important to have a UK logo designer or branding consultant work on such a uniquely British project. It should be noted that Samsung had this brand developed by a UK agency. This ensures that your designer understands their audience. If you want to make Olympic celebrations a part of your company marketing, talk to a UK branding consultant about how to take advantage of the fervor of the moment and inject a little Olympic fever into your own business.

British Design Schools Rank Among World’s Best

Logo Design Company London — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 11:33:20 +0000

What country has the best design schools? This is a more important question than it initially seems, because the country with the best design schools will also have the best designers. According to a recent survey from magazine BusinessWeek, the UK has several of the world’s best schools of design.

The factors used to rank the schools were diverse, because the field of design itself is diverse. A blend of traditional design skills and new technology are the ideal basis of the curriculum. Partnerships with other schools and even companies teach students to work in other industries, as they will be expected to do after graduation. Last, students need to be able to deal with change by being flexible and creative. After all, change is a huge part of both the global and the UK design world. Here are the three UK design schools that met these high standards.

London College of Communication. This design school, located in London as the name suggests, has notable alumni including Sir Charles Saatchi of Saatchi & Saatchi. Nine thousand students at a time are taught both classical graphic and product design as well as marketing and other related fields. As part of their training, the students work for business clients on real design projects, learning their field under the oversight of experienced staff.
Royal College of Art. Also located in London, this school is known for preparing students well for the challenging field of corporate graphic design. In fact, top employers include such notable names as Apple, Panasonic, Sony and Virgin. The industrial design program is one of the more acclaimed (James Dyson is a famous grad). Students of this college partake in real design projects for global companies, take international trips to familiarize themselves with global design, and learn strategies for business development as part of their design education.
University of Oxford, Saïd Business School. Oxford is an obvious addition to this list, having produced excellent and well-trained students for centuries. This program may focus primarily on business, but its students are also some of the best designers on the globe. Saïd Business School accomplished this by partnering with several other universities, including the Royal College of Art mentioned above. This business-oriented design program has done collaborative graphic design products for companies as divers and influential as Disney and L’Oréal. However, design education that Saïd is not limited to design students. MBAs are required to take courses in design and consulting because of these fields’ importance within the business community.

These schools are all very different, with focuses on design, art, and even business. However, one thing that they have in common is that they are producing great UK designers, including web designers and logo designers. The next time you need design services, the best thing you can do for your business and your country is to choose a UK design firm that will bring the excellence and experience of British design to your own company.

Customer Feedback as Branding?

Logo Design Company London — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:07:07 +0000

Branding is a hot topic in the petroleum industry right now. As the public becomes more and more sensitized to the important of green living, petrol products are becoming less popular and less socially acceptable. Anyone who can afford to live without fossil fuel sources of energy is switching over as quickly as possible. This means that it is essential that petroleum companies rebrand themselves less as industry giants, and more as companies dedicated to protecting the planet while responding to customer needs. In other words, they have to act like a small business.

British Gas is making a move in this direction by forming a consumer panel. This panel will mainly help determine the new direction of the company. This comes in the wake of the company’s public announcement that they are making moves to cut energy costs for their customers. While the company has not yet announced the size of its panel or exactly how it will affect policy, this is definitely a branding move in the right direction. A friendlier image is something that can benefit almost every business, large or small.

This is not the only move toward a more people friendly brand. First, customers who do not wish to join the panel can also interact with British Gas via the company website. A new feature on the site, called ‘British Gas Living Room’, invites customers to learn how they can save energy and thus reduce their bill over the long and expensive winter months. Second, in response to complaints, the company plans to stop estimating energy usage and instead allow customers to email or text their meter readings. This will end the common criticism that people are being charged for power they don’t actually use.

How will these moves toward customer friendliness work out for British Gas? While they are not as effective as appealing to the public’s ecological sensibility, this branding may help the company in the long run. People are more likely to feel loyal to an organization in which they have had a decision making role. Members of the customer panel will likely feel ‘bought in’ to the company. This has immense potential to start positive buzz, which is the most effective method of marketing available.

If you feel that your brand is moving further and further away from the needs and wants of your customer base, a customer panel may be your best option. This will allow you to get feedback from the people who matter most to your business while giving you invaluable guidance on where to take your company in the future. This is not just a good branding move, but an excellent general business move as well. Giving your customers exactly what they demand is one way to ensure your company’s viability both today and well into the future. A customer panel is one of the easiest ways to get the unbiased information you need. British Gas is intelligent in soliciting the opinion of the people buying their product.

How Not To Brand

Logo Design Company London — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:17:14 +0000

Branding is crucial to a business’s success, but many small business owners nonetheless cannot seem to build a cohesive brand. There are just a few common mistakes that cause this failure in the great majority of the cases. If you are having trouble building or maintaining your brand, it is time to honestly evaluate it for the following five pitfalls. Find them, fix them, and watch your business get back on track.

Amateur appearance. You may think that your brother is a brilliant artist, but he still is not a professional logo designer. Even if you can write html like a pro, you should still hire a web designer to create a professional, cohesive site for your business to call home. Every customer prefers dealing with trained professionals, and an amateur appearance will effectively blacklist you in the minds of the people who matter the most. Your brand is simply too important to dabble in casually. Hire professionals to do the heavy lifting and you are bound to be thrilled with the results.

Generic elements. A logo that isn’t unique and eye-catching might as well be invisible. The same goes for your name and your catch phrase. Your brand is supposed to set you apart from your competition, not make you blend in with them. Don’t be outlandish or brash, but make sure your brand is different enough to be noticeable to your specific market. Being generic will not inspire action in your customers.

Being too broad. You can’t please everyone, so don’t even try. Know your target audience and make sure all marketing and product development is aimed at this consumer. Many small business owners have tried to take a broader approach; the results are uniformly disastrous. A broad appeal won’t have any effect on people who have no perceived need for your product or service. Careful targeting will make sure you get the most benefit for your time, energy, and expenditures.

Being too narrow. Even if you begin as a local business, you will likely want to branch out after building a successful flagship store. Because expansion is a natural part of business growth, you should plan for it from the beginning. Don’t choose a brand or a logo that will lack relevance for people outside your immediate area. The universal is nearly always as effective as the particular. As long as you are targeting at a well defined type of customer, your logo designer will be able to create a logo that is broad in scope.

Not making it legal. There are steps to registering key aspects of your brand, including your logo, your catch phrase, and your name. Once you have taken steps to create a brand, protect with the full force of the law. This will keep your valuable brand from being diminished by impostors. It will also reduce the chance of finding out that you are inadvertently infringing on someone else’s brand. A logo designer can help you through this process.

5 Unlikely Side Effects of Branding

Logo Design Company London — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:32:12 +0000

You know that having a strong brand will give you an advantage in the competitive UK market, but there are a few other positive effects that you may not have realized. Having a UK brand doesn’t just draw in customers and give them an idea of what to expect from your company, it also gives your company a variety of benefits, including:

More potential for new product lines. Without a solid brand and a loyal following of customers, many London business owners are afraid to gamble on new product lines and services. While many people think that having a brand will be limiting and difficult to manage, in fact it opens up whole new possibilities for your business. Not only will having a brand make it easy to discern which products are right for your customers, it will also give you a built-in audience.

Bolstering the reputation of your area. If you have a successfully UK branded website, you will likely begin getting attention from outside your local area including London, Machester or any other major city. This will help build the reputation of your area, or even your nation, as a positive association with a strong brand can only be positive. Not only are you judged by the reputation of the place you call home, your location is judged by the calibre of business community that operates within its boundaries.

Increased security in hard times. As we have seen in the past few years, the British economy is not immune to periodic ups and downs. When the ‘downs’ hit, customers cut back first in areas that are not very important to them. If they have a solid connection with your company, they are far less likely to place your business on the expendable list. Multiple this effect by thousands of customers, and you will be doing a brisk business in any economy.

More time for the owner. If you are your brand, it likely is hard, or even impossible, for you to step out for lunch, or for any reason at all. Like many business owners, you will feel that you need to interact with every single client who walks in your doors or risk losing their business. Having a strong brand gives customers something to interact with besides you. If your sales staff understands your brand, they can communicate it effectively and help maintain an atmosphere congruent with your brand.

Word of mouth advertising. This is the most effective type of advertising, but it is also one of the most difficult forms of marketing to cultivate. When you have a strong brand that people identify with, it will likely be a source of conversation. If you are delivering on your brand promise, there is a good chance that this conversation is mostly positive, offering free and extremely valuable advertising for your company. While many companies try to stir up this kind of buzz, it is never as effect as when it arises organically from a customer being sincerely delighted with your business or your products.

What Is a Brand?

Logo Design Company London — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:02:45 +0000

Branding is one of the hottest topics in the business world. Many articles focus on the importance of having a strong brand, but few consider exactly what a brand means to the customer. A brand is much more than a logo or the decorations of your location—although these are indeed fundamental parts of a brand. A brand, in its most basic form, is a promise.

What kinds of promises does a strong brand make? First, there is a promise of product quality. Whether you are offering services or more tangible goods, you are promising a certain type of product. If you are running an upscale boutique, people will be expecting a very different type of product than if your brand focuses on low cost. If your logo is fun and playful, you will be attracting a target audience that has little interest in the modern and sleek. Whatever qualities your brand promises, it is crucial that you deliver them.

A second and more powerful promise that your brand makes is emotion. People who view your logo and other marketing techniques expect to feel a certain way when they interact with your business. If you are promising a relaxing, soothing experience, this will translate into a different type of store and service than if you are offering a rowdy good time. This promise absolutely cannot be broken without placing your business in jeopardy. Modern customers may be willing to overlook other discrepancies, but you must deliver the emotional experience that they are seeking.

How do you make this promise? First, you make promises with your logo. Shapes and colours both invoke powerful emotions in people. Images also can be an important part of showing people what to expect from your establishment, both the image itself and the way it is oriented with the rest of your logo. Fonts can communicate information about your style and products, whether modern and sleek or old fashioned and classic. If you and your logo designer use these key aspects well, people will walk into your establishment with an expectation that is similar to what you are delivering.

Another way that you make promises is with your style of advertising. Again, much of this promise is made on a very subconscious level that is nonetheless effective. Your advertising both in method and in content should tie in to your logo and your brand. This will create a cohesive experience in which customers receive exactly what they expect. This can only bolster your image, because these customers will walk away pleased with their experience. If, on the other hand, your logo promises a very different type of business than that which you are running, the customer will leave disappointed. Unfortunately, most people are far more likely to share negative experiences than positive ones, which can destroy the business that you are working to build.

So, to answer the question we began with, your logo is your promise to the customer of exactly what you are offering. No one likes to be deceived, so be sure your logo design and all other aspects of your brand are a good fit for your business and your products.

The London 2012 Olympics Logo: Winner or Loser?

Logo Design Company London — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:03:07 +0000

The London Olympics 2012 logo was a bit of a shock when it was initially unveiled in 2007. This logo is different from virtually every Olympic logo heretofore. First, it has a pop-inspired colour scheme that is both bright and attention-grabbing.

Second, its sharp edges and lightning-like images are uniquely representative of London retro. Instead of the Olympic rings taking centre stage, they are dwarfed by the image and instead placed inside the zero. However, several groups have pointed out issues with the logo, which include:

Potential harm to epileptics. The advocacy group Epilepsy Action feels that the colours are too bright and that they may contribute to seizures in people living with epilepsy. Commercials using the logo have been reported to have caused seizures in several people with the disease. The fact that the Paralympics held the same year have a similar logo with an identical colour scheme means that many people living with this disease will have to be exposed to an image that has potential to do them serious harm.

Resemblance to racist images. Many groups feel that the roughly square image with hard edges jutting out is just too similar to a swastika. Although seeing a swastika in the logo requires a stretch of the imagination, this is certainly not the impression that Londoners wanted to portray to millions of visitors to Great Britain.

Resemblance to a children’s show logo. Yet another image that the abstract London 2012 Olympics resembles is that of the popular show Tiswas. The two images share jagged edges and lightning bolt details as well as generally bright colour palettes, although the colours themselves are very different. This logo attempts to market to young people, so it is easy to see how the themes may be similar without actual copying.

Lack of tradition. Many expected the London 2012 Olympics logo to incorporate traditional British colours and symbols into the traditional Olympic rings. Whether it was the shape of well-known British landmarks or the colours of the Union Jack, there are many ways that key aspects of British culture could have been the central part of the Olympics logo.

It should be noted that the logo has many positive aspects as well, such as an ultra-modern colour palette that represents the fashion-forward population of London. For the handover ceremony, the colours of the Union Jack were indeed used with great applause. In addition, the dynamic shape has allowed the logo to be more saleable, with Olympics gear practically flying out of clothing stores all over the UK.

The London 2012 Olympics logo is a winner in one key way: it has everyone talking. Will this image rally people to support it, or will it continue to be a source of disagreement? Only the next few years will tell whether the logo garners the support and enthusiasm that Britain needs to perform well in the upcoming Winter Olympic Games, or whether the controversy and bickering will continue.