It has been nearly a month since the London 2012 Olympic Games Organizing Committee was hit with an avalanche of negative public opinion. On June 4 the Committee announced the new London 2012 logo, a new visual identity seemingly no one liked except the “branding” firm responsible for creating it.
Reaction to the new logo was swift, such as this BBC News report:
BBC blog posters saw the 2012 logo as an attempt to connect with young people in a “dad at the disco” kind of way:
“It’s boring and looks like it took a second for a 3 year old to do,” one wrote. “It certainly doesn’t appeal to children, I mean I’m 16 and dislike it, my brother is 10 and thinks it’s plain.”
[Another offered] “…It looks like a logo designed for young people by old people who don’t understand young people.”
One respected strategist compared the new logo to “ugly shards.”
Curiously, the firm behind the logo went into hiding. Emerging later from nearly two weeks of silence, the firm’s stance was reported in the Sunday Telegraph:
Brian Boylan, 61, the chairman of Wolff Olins, the…consultancy responsible for the £400,000 logo, insisted: “Let’s be clear: we won’t change the design at all. We are proud of it. It will go down in history. We have created something original in a world where it is increasingly difficult to make something different.”
[Patrick] Cox, 41, who led the design team that created the logo, said: “It wasn’t created to be warm and fuzzy.
“Its design is intentionally raw, which means it doesn’t immediately sit there and ask to be liked very much. It was meant to be something that did provoke a response, like the little thorn in the chair that gets you to breathe in, sit up and take notice.”
Thorny indeed.
How did the process of creating this logo lead to an overwhelmingly negative public firestorm? We begin by looking at the firm itself. As the logo creators describe themselves:
Wolff Olins started in the mid 60s as a design company. We focused on looks. But looks that worked, because they were always founded on an idea… By the mid 90s…[t]he brand idea became central to our philosophy. The brand idea is the core purpose which drives an organisation. It involves both the value of its position and the way it’s expressed – what it looks like and how it communicates itself.
Fine and good, but the Wolff Olins philosophy prompts this question: What is the brand idea the 2012 logo is founded upon? As any good brand consultancy knows, a great identity should grow out of a brand promise pointing to a unique competitive difference, one creating a “must have” response. This unique difference should work to shift the market conversation to the advantage of the brand.
We looked for the answer. One capable of understanding within seconds.
The Organizing Committee offers an eyes glazed over 454 word explanation here. No help.
A variety of press reports offered this explanation:
The design brief was for an emblem that represented the four key ‘brand pillars’ of access, participation, stimulation and inspiration, culminating in the brand vision of ‘Everyone’s Games’.
“London 2012 will be Everyone’s Games, everyone’s 2012. This is the vision at the very heart of our brand…”
And this from the press release:
London 2012 will be a Games for a connected world making the most of exciting new technology to get people closer to the action they want to see, when, where and how they want to experience it.
The new emblem is dynamic, modern and flexible reflecting a brand savvy world where people, especially young people, no longer relate to static logos but respond to a dynamic brand that works with new technology and across traditional and new media networks.
Nowhere do these explanations point to a demonstration of the one unique difference separating London 2012 from any other Olympics host city, or any other major sports event. Change out the name and the “brand idea” offered up by London 2012 could as easily apply to Beijing as to London, or the World Cup as to the Olympic Games.
Or, the London 2012 brand idea could just as easily support a youth oriented mobile service. And, as we found, it does.
The Wolff Olins claim to “have created something original in a world where it is increasingly difficult to make something different” rings hollow when their work is viewed within the context of other designs developed/directed by the firm. We located this press release describing another Wolff Olins design attempt to reach out to the youth market, describing a “brand idea” eerily similar to that of London 2012, and a likewise similar logo:
“djuice is now the world’s second largest mobile offering for young people…
At the same time, djuice has…introduc[ed]…a new logo. The design profile has been developed in cooperation with Wolff Olins…
“Our new image is playful, colourful and flexible, and the diversity reflects the many different aspects of djuice and the diversity of our customers’ interests…This is how we envisage djuice, as the centre, from where good things emerge, the only place young people need to visit to get the latest and best…experience.”
The reality is precious few location brands create human engagement by effectively tapping into their brand context with a compelling promise. Often such brands tend to veer off track and “settle” for brand stories and messages that are acceptable to those on the inside making decisions, but are wholly inadequate to engage those the brand seeks to reach and convert. These often self-congratulatory messages become irrelevant as soon as they are uttered. Perhaps part of the reason for this is the nature of governmental and quasi-governmental units involved in a branding project to want to seek a near unanimity among various stakeholders as decisions are made. However, this form of consensus if not worked through properly is the enemy of the breakthrough and can result in the banal. It puts a premium on the decision of whom is trusted with the process of uncovering the engaging and unforgettable story of your place and, in this case, your sports event.
Wolff Olins did not create a banal 2012 logo, nor did they create a breakthrough. Rather they created a logo begging for an explanation, and not a brand.
What London 2012 needs instead is a visual demonstration supporting the unique promise of these Olympic Games, one creating excitement rather than acting as a barrier to public enthusiasm. How do they get there?
To create a breakthrough brand, to offer a compelling story engaging the audiences London 2012 seeks, the brand must offer a difference, a unique “something unheard of elsewhere.” True, there is far more to the story of London 2012 than one unique difference. However, to create the opportunity to tell the broader story of the Games, to own the conversation, London 2012 must first stand for a single uniqueness, a door opener, prompting an audience to care long enough to stop, and to stop long enough to be influenced.
What is it about London 2012 that separates the experience from all other alternatives?
How will this experience fulfill a passion not satisfied elsewhere?
Why should anyone care?
If an audience can answer these questions for themselves within seconds, then we see a brand that matters. One that appreciates in value and creates economic opportunity. One capable of being remembered above all others.
For the decision-makers responsible for creating such a brand that’s when the fun begins; when they receive credit for being oh-so-smart.
[More posts about London 2012 Olympics | More posts about Beijing 2008 Olympics | More posts about London 2012 Logo | More posts about London 2012 Branding | More posts about Olympics | More posts about Destination Branding | More posts about Place Branding | More posts about Sports Branding | More posts about Event Branding | More posts about Brand Identity | More posts about Brand Image | More posts about Brand Strategy | More posts about Pop Culture | More posts about djuice | More blogs about Sports Branding]
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