Walmart offers always low prices, but at a cost.
The company has been criticized on a number of fronts including their record with labor, the environment and vendor negotiations. Incredibly, the company accounts for over 11% of U.S. trade deficit with China, representing nearly 200,000 jobs lost.
Now we have another reason to pick on Walmart: Their re-brand.
Here’s a graphic from the company website showing the evolution of the Walmart logo:
Walmart offered little explanation for the change:
For the past two years, a customer focused transformation has been taking place in Walmart’s U.S. business.
Walmart’s U.S. locations will update store logos as part of an ongoing evolution of its overall brand – customers have already seen this in refreshed store signage and recent print advertisements and TV commercials.
But what really matters is what happens out there in the stores. This update to the logo is simply a reflection of the refresh taking place inside our stores and our renewed sense of purpose to help people save money so they can live better.
Can they be more vague? If they are going to leave the logo open to interpretation, that’s what I’ll do:
The color is more contemporary, and by moving from all upper-case to a capitalized “W” and lower-case letters its more approachable.
But what’s with the ginormous starburst?
At first I wondered why they didn’t read my blog post about marketing without an * because that’s what it looks like—a huge asterisk.
By definition, an asterisk is “used to highlight a particular word or sentence, often to indicate a footnote” or “a blemish in an otherwise outstanding achievement.”
So, where’s the footnote, and why would you want a logo that looked your company name with an asterisk? Can you imagine AT&T*, Apple*, GM*, Microsoft* or Johnson + Johnson* doing this? No way.
Should Walmart go out of their way to communicate that they have a blemish (pick one) on their otherwise outstanding achievement (biggest retailer in the world)?
Even worse, it looks like a big sphincter. So many people already consider them one, does their logo need to look like one?
You know, great branding can help capture and communicate the way the consumer really feels about a company.
Hmmm. Maybe their branding people actually hit the mark.
Nah. Given the amount of products they import from China, this would be even more fitting:
Would you agree that Walmart’s new logo is highly irresponsible, even borderline unforgivable? Why or why not?
Comment below to weigh in.
Read some entertaining comments regarding the Walmart rebranding on Brand New.
Inspiration for the this post came from this article on the smartbrandblog.
Tags: branding, design, new logo, re-branding, Walmart
It seems to me that brandmarks or logos often reflect their times or times the company wishes to evoke. The new Walmart logo looks very 1970s, to me; perhaps they are planning to roll-back prices to the 70s too? The China logo mock-up is hilarious.
Someone should do a book of these logo transformations or a web site. Would be interesting to see how other brands have evolved or devolved.
For an interesting take on The Nature Conservancy brandmark, check out: http://greensleeves.typepad.com/berkshires/2007/04/natural_selecti.html
I agree with greenskeptic, that the new logo looks dated already, it reminds me of stores in the 60’s and 70’s as well…. Even though the china logo was intended to be funny, and is funny, I think that one has way more visual punch than the one with the asterisk…. The significance of the stars next to the Walmart name would probably go over most people’s heads….I wouldn’t consider their new logo irresponsible, it just looks kind of like a starburst or something to me, but it just kind of looks dumb, dated, and five and dime-ish….
I like the new logo. However, when I saw it I said “Maybe now folks will start using the name properly in copy.” For years I had to correct coworkers who typed it as, Wal*Mart, when it was Wal-Mart in all the retailer’s press releases. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart appears not to have changed that, and the proper typed name is still Wal-Mart as shown here:http://walmartstores.com/FactsNews/NewsRoom/8488.aspx. Since they took out the star in the middle, I thought the new typed version would now be simply, Walmart. Oh well. Maybe they’ll change that eventually.
First of all, I’d suggest that this isn’t a logo, or a logotype, or a brandmark, a symbolic presentation of content and concept, or — for that matter — an anatomical representation. I think that — once again — it goes back to the generic legacy of what WalMart actually is — generic. It’s “general”. There’s really no personality — because, there’s really no person. And that is, to my thinking, the truth of it. I don’t believe that it actually has an identity – I believe that WalMart actually lives in the shadow world of commerce, cut downs, vendor smashing and a kind of effluent approach to “consumer” (and I mean that in every sense of the word) offerings that are inherently soul-less. WalMart is about absolute absence of personality. Go there, and what do you remember — what’s distinguishing? What’s memorable? What’s rich and humanly satisfying? Money, saved? Or more money spent, on more stuff — had at a “savings”? I’m wondering, dear reader — have you ever even been there?
Scary. That grouping of marks is intriguing as a kind of warning sign — like the biocide symbols, hazard markings or “attention: danger: verboten” kind of signing archetypes.
My take, what’s yours — ? Tim Girvin | girvin@girvin.com | http://blog.girvin.com/
Here’s what I can tell you from discussions I have had with friends that work for the company at their HQ.
First, the “asterisk”, is a star. The star in the center of the logo actually had a meaning and represented the founder, Sam M. Walton. It was put there in his honor after his death so that he would never be forgotten.
The removal of the star completely would have been very controversial (just changing it created an uproar at the home office) so it was modernized and moved to the end.
Thank you, Mike for clarifying a question that has been burning in my mind. I, personally, love Walmart. I appreciate the opportunity and products that they bring to small markets. The ease of conducting commerce there is something that I appreciate, and it is something that I cannot find in other stores. I know what to expect when I go into a Walmart and I know that they will make it right if I don’t get it. I was very curious about the new symbol, and have a greater respect for it now that I know for what it symbolizes. Walmart is not a soul less creature, rather, it is a corporation, like many others, which is run by people. And those people seem committed to fulfilling Sam Walton’s vision of friendly customer service, and providing people with things that they want and need at a low price.
Actually the change was not that noticeable for me. I just now realized the change since I mostly just go in and go out without bothering to look at the sign out front or on the bags. It didn’t hit me until they actually started rearranging everything the store, much to my initial disdain but now everything’s placed together in a more convenient way. I don’t have go clear across the store to get toothpaste when everything else I’m buying is in the grocery section. To me the new logo does look more approachable. Less corporate and more people friendly. The asterisk seems a bit odd but it looks like a flower almost which goes with the whole friendlier image they’re trying to portray.
Aww. In my heart, they’ve always been Sphincter Mart.
[...] researching about rebranding efforts I came across The Responsible Marketing Blog posting about Walmart’s rebrand. Not only was it funny, it was informative. I found that my research was directing me to all [...]
I have to say that Walmart has changed their logo look a lot but I suppose that this does tend to happens things become more modern, this site is informative
Sphincter is pretty much spot-on, considering what they have done to small retailers all over the place. Pucker up folks, here comes some more cheap Chinese crapola to consume
I came by this little website because of an email I had recieved about how walmart (however you want to spell it) was rebranding. Hmmm. I didn’t notice a change either. At first glance, the new thing on the end looked like the sun to me. It probably looks like something different for everyone, actually. I laughed hard about the sphincter, though. Soon, wally worlds will have driven out all the other stores, and will raise its prices again-and we will have no choice but to shop there because it will literally be our ONLY choice. Sphincter, sun, starburst or whatever, theres some fine print were not seeing.
Interesting research article regarding the history of the Asterisk*, absolutely vital for the survival of companies as worthy as ours.
Regards,
Robert E. Coli
CEO Thromby Air – Lowest of the Low
http://www.thrombyair.com
* while this is presented as historical research, like all research it may not be entirely accurate.