A million dollar logo?

Let’s first agree that art is subjective. Your Jackson Pollock is another person’s 1st grade art project… And, so the camps are divided on whether or not Pepsi’s new logo, which is said to have taken five months and upwards of a million dollars to produce, is creative genius or just a big waste of money. It’s only their eleventh logo in 110 years of doing business and most likely their most expensive rebranding effort to-date. This led us to muse on what the client estimate for this logo must’ve looked like!

Here are, what we consider to be, the most clever and the most offensive aspects of the new logo and the pseudo charges associated with each idea:

Type Setting, $250k – the typeface has gone from its long-standing, all caps version to a more modern, all lowercase font. We like the change. In addition, the “wave” from the previous logo’s white interior band is mimicked in the “e” of the new typeface. Good attention to detail.

Pepsi Icon, $500k – According to Advertising Age, the new icons (yes, there are three of them) represent varying degrees of a smile. Notice on the bottles below how the white “wave” changes size. Diet Pepsi gets a “grin,” Pepsi gets a “smile” and Pepsi Max gets a full-blown “laugh.” So, what does that say about the drink itself? Diet Pepsi will make the consumer slightly happy, while Pepsi Max makes them laugh uncontrollably? It’s also important to note that Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Max both have “0” calories and Diet Pepsi and Pepsi have the same caffeine content – so why the different degrees of happiness?

Bottle Design, $250k – In both the current bottle design and the previous bottle design, the dominant feature of each icon, the “wave,” is replicated on the plastic container. Alas, the execution of the most recognizable element of one of the world’s most recognizable brands went too far. In our humble opinion, the bottle design would’ve related better to the new logo had it stayed the same.

Take a look at the images below and decide for yourself. We think we could’ve done just as well with a much more down-to-earth budget. Oh, wait – we already do!

What does 2009 hold for marketers and agencies?

Interesting story in the Jan. 5 edition of the Wall Street Journal under the headline, “Ads to Go Leaner, Meaner in ’09.” The upshot is: that in times of economic hardship, marketers will be forced to do more with less and focus on getting results.

Sounds reasonable enough, but it makes me wonder why it takes a recession to get national marketers and their agencies to focus on getting the best results possible within reasonable budget restraints. That’s what we’ve been doing for our clients since…well, since we had clients.

You know, there seems to be a disconnect between how business has been conducted on the coasts versus here in the middle of the country. Giant mortgage companies were making home loans to people without requiring a down payment or proof of income or even payments against their principal. Now they wonder how things got so bad. Investment firms were buying and selling things they couldn’t even explain – many of which were basically a giant glob of the aforementioned home loans. Now they wonder why they are going out of business. And now, in this WSJ article, we read how the giant marketing agencies that have been spending bazillion dollar budgets without focusing on getting results are expecting lean times in 2009.

Reading this story makes me so appreciative of our clients and the relationships we have developed with them over the years. To have clients who are focused on getting results and expect their agency to do the same is such a blessing. As we look ahead to 2009, we anticipate that we will continue to do more with less compared to any of our coastal friends and most of our local peers. We also anticipate that we will continue to focus on getting results for our clients. After all, that’s what we do every day. No news here.