Walmart Goes Softie with New Logo

Although I have a PR company, I am passionate about logos and brand communication.

Walmart is about to begin replacing its Old Glory-colored signs with a muted burnt orange and white combo.   The somewhat medical clinic looking signs will be phased in to Walmart’s 3600 US stores, and follows the company replacing blue polyester uniforms with khakis and collared shirts.

I suspect Walmart is trying to make its abrasive, nation dominating brand and imposing culture seem more palpable in new and smaller markets.   The reputation of its intimidating stance has caused many towns to reject proposals for neighborhood Walmart stores in the past.

Let’s watch this behemoth continue to grow as it acquires a warmer hug and better people skills.

Why not make it a world record?

The highly anticipated FireFox 3 was released yesterday, and 8.3 million copies have been downloaded in 24hrs, giving it a 4% market share out of the gate.

Millions were anxiously waiting for this, but why not put a spin on it anyways?   Firefox said they wanted this to be the most downloaded thing in a 24hr period.   Guinness unlikely tracks download activity, so who knows what the previous record was.   But that’s not the point.

The point is… they did it!   Contests and world records excite people to be a part of a campaign.

TechCrunch link

Google-Powered Logos

Some corporations dilute their impact by having multiple brands that don’t appear to come from the same family.  Not Google.

Google has multiple brands, but you ALWAYS know it’s Google.  It is rarely on a different url.  It’s always something.google.com.   The winged turbine above is Google Code.

Mini Gets It

Few companies have a strong cool factor - let alone car companies. Some TRY too hard, and end up looking dorky.

Mini hits their target market in the bullseye.

Even Superheroes need PR

Hancock is about a homeless superhero that nobody likes. He hires a PR agent to help him with his image.
Put this in your calendar to see, k?
Because making superheroes BETTER is what we do.

K, fine, I’ll Twitter

It’s humbling to watch early adopters and PR heroes twitter, and not be apart of the crowd that ‘gets it’.

Facebook drove me nuts at first, and up until this point Twitter has been more annoying than useful, but all the cool kids seem to be twittering.

So, yes, I twitter. You?

Kids Up Front in the Vancouver Sun

This is such a cool charity that I’m working with.
Your tickets to the game/play/event that you can’t use can be sent to Kids Up Front, and they will fill your seats with needy children that would never be able to go to the event otherwise.

Here’s their piece in Saturday’s sports section.

Funny Shoe Ad

Go Simple!

AKA The Red.. Paperclip… Ma-aan

Feed off the inspiring, then do something bigger or better.

Visuals Are Powerful

The Mayor of Seattle wants Seattleites to stop drinking bottled water.

Today he had on display downtown Seattle 56 oil barrels and 9,000 water bottles. The barrels represent the oil it takes to transport all of the bottled water consumed in Seattle in a 12 hour period, and the water bottles represent how many bottles are used in the city in a 37 minute period.

He could have issued some drab report with overwhelming statistics, but holy crap does this ever get the point across.

PI link