Brands that have grown up under the gaze of social media rarely change their logo without being ridiculed by the crowd.

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Editor’s note: There is such a phenomenon in the market: after many companies rebrand and change their logos, they often cause severe negative feedback on social media, which in turn leads to a decline in sales and consumers spontaneously boycott the company. Why does the change of Logo always cause such negative reactions? Why does the company continue to reinvent the brand, knowing that it will cause negative reactions? The author takes us behind these rebranding strategies and answers the above questions. The author of this article is Micaela Marini Higgs, the original title is “Why Does Any Company Bother to Rebrand? An Investigation”.

Picture from Unsplash｜Photography Morning Brew

Consumer: Not necessary

In January 2019, three years after the acquisition of Xilianwu, Marriott International Group launched a long-prepared rebranding plan: Bonvoy Travel Enjoy home service. The official website of Marriott explains that the name Bonvoy is inspired by the French “Bon Voyage” (wish the trip a smooth journey), and the Chinese translation is “travel home”. After joining the membership program, as long as you stay in more than 6,500 hotels under Marriott International Group-including Ritz-Carlton, Courtyard Hotel,Renaissance Hotel,Marriott AC Hotel,Wanfeng Hotel-any one, you can get one mile for every dollar spent.

Marriott International’s Global Chief Commercial Officer Stephanie Linnartz said on the official website: “The Marriott Bonvoy membership program is not only a loyalty promotion The plan marked the beginning of a new chapter in travel.”

Now may be the best time to rebrand. In 2019, the hotel group with a market value of 39.56 billion U.S. dollars was plagued by negative news: first it was revealed that the reservation system leaked consumer personal data (about 383 million customer information was leaked), and then it encountered the largest in U.S. history Large-scale hotel staff went on strike.

Marriott Hotel invited Oscar-nominated filmmakers to produce a 60-second promotional film for the Bonvoy project, of which 30-second shots cost US$2.8 million. Subsequently, this membership program also appeared in the media in 22 countries and regions, and Marriott also brought this promotional video to the Oscars ceremony.

This group has spent millions of dollars and used a lot of manpower and material resources to realize the rebranding plan. What is the final effect? It turns out that the effect is very bad.

Shortly after the 60-second advertisement was broadcast, public opinion on social networking sites began to ferment. Passengers wrote: “If someone mentions’Bonvoy’ to me, I will immediately turn around and walk out of the hotel”, “Bonvoy wants to disgust me with Oscar’s gimmick?”, “Bonvoy is a terrible name, I think this The act of changing the name of a member is completely unnecessary.”

In the age of social media, there are “minefields” everywhere

Rebranding always seems to be difficult to escape from the vicious circle: After a series of negative news, companies start to think of ways to reshape their image, launch new logos and new designs. Or reshape the brand as a whole. After much discussion, the new plan was finally pushed to the world-especially social media. But what followed was to receive a lot of negative comments, which put the company in trouble.

It’s not a new thing for brands to receive negative reviews, but today, with the development of social media, such negative reviews have reached an unprecedented extent after fermentation. An account director said: In the past, people might criticize a brand in front of TV. Now, with social media, all users’ criticisms can be heard and seen. These big brands find themselves in a “digital minefield” because If you are not paying attention, it will become a hot topic on the whole network.

So, after realizing this, why are big brands still actively investing in human and material resources to rebrand?

As early as 2009, Pepsi-Cola’s juice brand Tropicana suffered a “rebranding rollover” incident: it was criticized by the people for changing its packaging. The brand decided to remove the old packaging and replace it with a more modern new packaging. This move allowed this little-known brand to be pushed to the forefront of the trend: it caused an emotional rebound among consumers on an unprecedented scale. Critics say the new packaging loses the core of Tropicana, and consumers use social media to call it “ugly.” To make matters worse, because they are not familiar with the new packaging, many people cannot find Tropicana juice on the shelf.

According to AdAge’s data, in the two months after the launch of the new packaging, sales of the Tropicana series fell by 20%, with a loss of $33 million, and the market value was Fell below 137 million US dollars. The brand wanted to attract consumers with new packaging, but it was counterproductive.

Tropicana’s new design was planned by Arnell, a subsidiary of the advertising group Mnicom, which is also responsible for Pepsi’s brand agency. After the failure of Tropicana’s new packaging strategy, the company’s new logo scheme for Pepsi was leaked on social platforms.And was negatively reviewed. The 27-page plan even included words such as “Feng Shui” and “Pepsi Gravity”. Before, Pepsi-Cola has changed its logo 10 times, not only the effect is not satisfactory, but also because of the alleged plagiarism of the software company’s logo, it has fallen into dispute.

Coincidentally, the fast-selling giant GAP has also been caught in a storm of “net bad reviews” and “sales decline” because of its logo change. Some people compare the new logo to “a kid made with Windows.” AdAge even mocked: “This is not a new logo at all, it’s just a gimmick.” In the face of continued criticism on social media, GAP could only announce that it would replace the new logo and return to the original logo. This new change in less than 6 days “shaken the foundation of GAP.”

Two other examples are Slack and Snapchat. In January last year, the online collaboration tool Slack announced its new logo-a logo that resembled the word “Tic Tac Toe”. A few months later, Snapchat adjusted its “little ghost” profile. Like many brands that have grown up under social media surveillance, these two software’s actions to change the logo without exception have caused bad reviews from social media users.

Executives who are more willing to take risks

Howard Belk, the co-CEO of Siegel+Gale, a brand strategy consulting company, said: “A strong brand helps the development of the company. One thing every company’s CEO should know.” If the rebranding is successful, it will become a symbol of a major corporate strategy adjustment-this strategy includes not only improving products, attracting new customers, but also preparing to go public. But there is also a huge risk in rebranding, because consumers are likely to be