Free Porsche with every logo
February 18, 2009 at 2:34 pmPardon my blatently slanted title for this blog, but this one comes from the heart.
I’ve just been reviewing with my peers a rationale for the latest logo for a large, multi-national corporation. This presentation seems to epitomise the approach for many large design agencies. “We’ll design a new logo (sorry, I’m sure it’s a ‘brand’) and then back-track our rationale via a 27 page document whipped up by our art department.” Now, I’m not telling a multi-national how best to spend their million dollars (literally), but the thing that scares the pants off me is how this type of application to branding spills over to the real world of mortals – like you and me – in business.
Much like how the high fashion catwalks of New York Fashion Week flow into our every day clothing, the way large corporation conducts itself influences the workings of day to day business. Therefore, when we see and hear stories of large companies getting taken for a ride by large design and advertising firms – you only have to see the London 2012 logo as an example – it affects my clients and my industry. This type of conduct highlights the attitude of ‘the bigger the client, the bigger the cheque they will write’.
I hear horror stories in my own backyard of companies wanting to redefine their position in their market, and finding themselves on the end of a ‘not quite right’ logo and a bill so large they have no money left to set it right, and so they make do with what they’ve paid for. I’m sure the logic behind the logo sounded great around the boardroom table, but now they think about it, they have no idea what it means to them, yet alone what it says to their customers. Surely if this behaviour is acceptable to the large corporates, what hope do you have?
I’m taking this blog to say, it is NOT acceptable. I’m seeing large agencies taking their corporate clients for a ride, and selling them what is the best outcome for the design agency (whether it’s profit, or recognition), and not the client that is paying them. As the client you have a right to expect the outcome you want, and if it’s not achievable then you need to be told at the beginning, and not when you’re too financially tied to the project to back out.
The only way you’re to know for sure whether you’ve got what you needed, is to know what you want out of the project in the first place. Take your agency your wish list, they can tell you at the beginning if it’s feasible. Or get them to help you write it. If they say it is possible, then expect that as the outcome, otherwise we’re no better off than those corporates.
I think the big companies, in these financial times, have an obligation to their shareholders, and staff to make more informed decisions about how they spend their profit, with real results. Throwing money at a meaningless logo is not responsible conduct.
Now if the agency had thrown in a brand new Porsche (or two) with the logo, you can really see the value in that. Or maybe they did…
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