Walmart Rebrands, My Opinion Stays The Same

This past weekend retail giant Walmart (Look mom! No hyphen now!) decided to quietly drop a totally new logo on the masses. No press releases have been issued and the company is not responding to any stories yet, though it updated the logo on its website yesterday. According to the Wall Street Journal, Walmart’s recent rebranding efforts are part of the company’s recent attempts to shed the “dowdy image” it has in the public’s mind. I’m not sure if the update has quite shed that image since I don’t think it’s previous mark was the reason for its current image. Walmart’s shabby image is a result more from its horrible treatment of employees, continued allegations of preferential treatment of male employees, low-quality merchandise and their predatory tactics that hollow out smaller, local economies.

My initial response to the logo is that I don’t hate it, but I don’t love. It’s safe, not timeless and mediocre. It doesn’t change my impression of the company, but that isn’t likely to change with a new logo since my problems with the company stem more from horrible customer experiences, dirty shopping conditions and overall feeling of “slumming” when I enter the store’s doors.

A more level-headed response to the Walmart’s rebranding can be found over at Brand New’s website.

Posted by Joshua Hynes

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1, 2008 at 9:56am. It has been filed under Art & Design, Design, Business, Marketing, News, Money, Reviews, Thoughts, Writers, Joshua.

Comments

Finally! 2 loving people have cared enough to share their thoughts with me. Why don't you join the party?

1. You would have thought they might have updated their favicon as well.

   ZNB wrote on Tuesday, July 1, 2008 at 1:07pm.

2. I posted this on another site, but since your board looks lonely, I thought I’d post it here as well.

   I gave it 15 minutes and designed the first thing that popped into my head. I’m sure I’m opening myself up for some criticism, but have at it. I have this crazy notion, that given 2 hrs, and the rest of my creative team, we could have the start of something amazing.

   [url="http://www.modifiedthinking.com" rel="nofollow"]
   
   [/url]

   Cale wrote on Friday, July 11, 2008 at 2:26pm.

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