Ok, so it has been a while since I’ve blogged recently. But starting today I’m back with my first real post of 2011. About Coca Cola and Pepsi. Some while ago I had to give a presentation about the brand elements of 2 major competing brands. I chose Coca Cola and Pepsi. In case you didn’t know brand elements are “Trademarkable devices that serve to identify and differentiate the brand” and are “chosen to enhance brand equity”. There are 6 important criteria for brand elements. The have to be:
- Memorable
- Meaningful
- Likable
- Transferable
- Adaptable
- Protectable
I’m not going into detail but both brands are doing quite well (generally speaking) when looking at these 6 important brand elements. There were a few big differences between them however but I’m only going to focus on one part for now. When zooming in on the criterium of adaptability something was quit striking about the Coca Cola logo. Here underneath you can see some of the major logo changes they did since the launch of the Coca Cola brand.
As you can see the logo has been changed quite some times over the years but stayed very recognizable, except in 1985 but this logo has soon disappeared. If we zoom into how customers believe the logo to have evolved however they found it very consistent, even tough there indeed have been quite some changes over the years. In fact most people believe the logo never to have been quite different from this one underneath:
So because Coca Cola never made any major changes to their logo, the perceptions that people have of their logo is one of consistency. But Coca Cola has managed in the mean while to update the logo so that it looks more modern and ready for the future. And this without confusing customers. Quite good marketing in fact!
What about Pepsi? Well they took another approach with their logo and actually changed it a lot more over time. You can see this underneath.
Both strategies have their strengths probably but it looks like Coca Cola had a better long time view about the evolution of their logo. At least, if consistency is the key to the better logo.
