Yahoo! Changing Their Logo on September 4th.

One of the topics that we often blog about is brands. While you mostly hear about branding as it relates to larger companies, it is an important part of your business no matter how big or small you are. We are always on the lookout for interesting brand stories and we have recently been following two. The first one is about Yahoo’s latest logo project and the other one is about JC Penney’s recent struggles. Today’s blog post will be discussing Yahoo and next week we will dive into JC Penney. Enjoy!

In case you haven’t heard, Yahoo has decided to change its logo. They are launching the new logo as part of a 30 day preview. They are showcasing a new version of their logo each day for 30 days and then the public will get to see the final logo on September 4^th.

Yahoo has been through some changes lately – we blogged about their recent purchase of Tumblr not too long ago. That was just one of many large purchases and bold company changes they have incurred with their new CEO. Their latest project involved changing their logo which has been pretty constant since the mid nineties.

So, this is a huge project – changing a company logo. Not only does a lot of effort go into designing a new look for a brand but the way that Yahoo has chosen to reveal the new logo would require a lot of time and energy as well. Is it really worth it? Will the public really care? Does it help the business?

Our opinion is that marketing people LOVE logos. We geek out about them, frankly. It is an expression of the brand. (Remember that a brand is a much bigger concept that just the logo.) However, the general public may not care so much.

Currently Yahoo competes (and looses) in the search battle against Google. They have their hands in lots of different pots and they aren’t necessarily getting more users. Obviously they are hoping that by creating a new, hip logo that they will attract more customers. While new logos are fun, it probably isn’t going to help Yahoo’s business that much.

Will we be checking out the new logo on September 4^th? Yeah, probably. Will we be switching from Google to Yahoo if we like the logo? Probably not.

Our recommendation for you business owners out there is to focus on your customers and your brand. A new logo might be fun for you but you certainly don’t want to confuse your customers because you changed up your look.

One last thought on new logos for large companies. If you have been around for awhile, consumers know your logo. If you change it and they don’t like it you may run into some problems. People got pretty upset when Gap changed their logo a few years ago. The company ended up going back to their old logo. Probably a lot of work for nothing.