A brand is not a logo. It’s not a company name. These things
contribute to a brand, as do every other element that make up a company or
organization – including people, products or services, culture… the list could
be endless, but there’s a lot that goes into it.
Still, it is a scary (and sometimes dangerous) thing to
change a logo or a company name. It can be refreshing and effective, but it can
kill any equity you have built over time.
My company has been running for three years, and I felt it
was time to freshen things up a bit with my own forward-facing marketing. I
took a huge shot of inspiration from my friends over at MacMillan Marketing
Group, who just took a brave (and ridiculously effective) leap evolving into “The Letter M Marketing”. It was a
major change, and they hit all the points it set out to do: they look like a
new company, but they maintained all the history and personality behind the company that made them (and their brand) great in the first place.
So, after a bit of soul searching and strategic planning, I decided that my greatest business challenge is countering initial misperceptions
about “what I do”. I can explain what I do easily enough, but I felt my actual
logo was supporting misperceptions before anyone even met me.
I was subject to a weird convergence of timing when I
established my company in January 2009. The name “Sociable” is itself an
eastern-Canada term for “cheers”. The colour scheme I chose for the logo -
shades of blue - was deemed “professional and welcoming” (there’s lots of
studies about colour perceptions as they relate to business).
 |
| Sociable Communications Logo: January 2009 Designed by Annette ten Cate - Orange Door Design |
The problem? February 2009 saw the sudden explosion of this “new
thing” called “social media”. Social media has been around for years of course,
but that season was when it blew up in the public consciousness. If you care to
quibble with the timing, check out Twitter new user uptake in that period:
According to this data, there were about 2 million new Twitter
users in February 2009, and almost 8 million only two months later. These were
the heady days when Ashton Kucher broke a million followers, and Oprah wouldn’t
shut up about social media. It was an interesting time to have a
communications, marketing & media company called “Sociable”. It didn’t help
that my carefully-chosen colours were also seen as “professional and welcoming” by a
few other companies that were quickly growing in prominence….
This could have been a great boost to business if I wanted
to be just a social media consultant - but as I have written and said often,
social media is just one tactic in an overall communications strategy. I have
no interest in helping people to communicate information if I feel they are not
communicating helpful, relevant information… but most folks just wanted a
Facebook page, not a strategic marketing & communications strategy. I did
some really interesting work with a number of larger companies to integrate
social media use into their overall communications, and that was great, but it
isn’t where the future is going.
So, it’s time for a fresh coat of paint. I went so far as to
completely strip my logo (and company name) apart, with redesigns and all sorts
of stuff. However, I think there is a certain equity in my “inverted
exclamation marks” (the word ‘Sociable’ in the Maritime context is always
shouted), it is supportive of my business philosophy, and I like it.
The word ‘communications’ has a few challenges: a lot of
people ask if I work with “cell phones”. So, I thought I’d add in the “&
Marketing” to not only get that in there, but also to visually highlight the
word “Sociable” better. If I have anything resembling a wordmark in my brand,
that’s it.
So, deciding that I didn't need to reinvent the wheel dramatically, I was down to colours. The blues are not as relevant to
me as they used to be, and have actually become potentially harmful against the
ubiquity of the “Facebook” shades. After stripping apart a number of ideas, I
landed on something that better represents me. If I practice what I preach,
then I have to embrace the fact that “I am the brand” as much as anything, which
brings me to my musical instruments. I have a lot – probably too many - but
these are my favorites:
Notice a similarity? So, voila…. That’s where I landed on
the new colours – a quiet emulation of the inner shading on my beloved
vintage Gibson J-45 and my Fender Jazz basses, which leads to the new (and slightly evolved logo) for
Sociable:
Thanks to Francesco Piccioni, Lisa Lawless and Marshal
McLernon for the design assistance and insight, and to Annette ten Cate for the original design!
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