Throwaway brands and odd color sync

"Everything red becomes blue" shouts a new campaign for Vodafone in Sweden, which no longer will be called Vodafone, instead it will be called Telenor. The old droplet/quote logo in red is exchanged for some random fan/swirl in blue. Sonofon in Denmark joins in and use that blue logo - however they won't change their name.
What is it about cellphone providers that make them want to change their names and logo's all the time? Before it was Vodafone, it used to be Europolitan. And before that, who knows... More inside for some oddly syncronized color mind games in a badland triple.

Color game number one:

"Brave Children's hip onsies, the blue one reads "girl" and the pink one reads "boy". Designed by Lotta Lundstedt, a textildesigner, a year or two ago and available here.

Color game number two:

Beckers, the paint provider has a campaign where colors are mismatched with words that don't fit them at all. "Easter" is painted on red, while "Xmas" is painted on yellow. Blue is homosexual. Pink is straight. Babyblue is girls, pink is boys! Endless variations. Attention to detail, even the rainbow in the logo which is on its own poster is hand painted.

Color game number three:

Formerly Vodafone becomes "Telenor" and 'everything red becomes blue' as their tagline says.

Strange little exersize, these 'unexpected' color and word combinations, or rather strange that they all appeared more or less at the same time. It happens.

My gripe here isn't really with the color-ideas, but with the ease which big companies today throw away well invested brands. Perhaps it's an illness that affects cellphone operators in particular but I feel like I've seen too much of this lately. Company X buys company Y and rebrands. Company Z is bored and rebrands. Company W doesn't want to feel left out and rebrands too. With this throwaway mentality on brands, names and logotypes going on we're never likely too see any protest 30 years down the line by brand-fans that ask to "Save brand X" like the Save the 76 ball want to keep their old logo. How on earth do ad buyers expect to get loyal customers when they themselves aren't loyal to their own brand? I'll never understand that.

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Anonymous Adgrunt's picture
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claymore's picture

Telenor? First impressions take me to Telenor Roosevelt or Telenor Rigby - both kinda curious choices for a modern communications giant.

I woulda preferred Telvira or Telvis or Telmer. Telmo even.

But since those options ignore the "...nor"=Norsky thing, might I suggest instead...

Teleborkborkbork?

MaryWills's picture

And then they go and confuse everyone and go back to their original name, a la AT&T.