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That there is absolutely nothing wrong with the new London 2012 Olympics logo, but there is something seriously wrong with the logo-driven branding industry at large, as this new logo clearly proves that as we approach 2012, global society will not respond to conventional logos or graphics, but only to these kinds of insignificant, dysfunctional and obscure design works which will eventually become branding norms throughout the world. This clearly proves the lingering demise of the logo-branding industry.

There is an increased numbness of today's global consumers to overly-burdened, noisy advertising. This twisted and created hype that is often labeled as logo-driven branding exercises would eventually shut off the minds of future customers.
This release of the London logo, half a decade prior to the 2012 games themselves, has realistically captured the essence and portrayed the future demonstrating the miniscule value of the logo.

Let's face it, first of all in this hyper-accelerated society, the logos are almost dead. Fifty years ago, customers remembered the logos of IBM or Chevrolet, which presented uniquely mind grabbing graphical ideas by compressing their images into extremely sharp messages emulating simple vibes via powerful symbols. Not today, pick up your top ten companies and try to remember their logos and ask yourself if they really have an impact. With one million new logos a month being invented by the computer savvy, small business armies of ever growing nations like India and China, only the very naïve and the ad industry continues to dream in Technicolor, convinced that customers are memorizing the identical circles and lines in twisted colors now called fly-by-night and changed-by-the-day logos. This overly zealous creativity needs to be harnessed as the cut and paste culture and the latest libraries of million logos available for free have shifted the goal posts. This is one of the main reasons where advertising consistently and tragically fails over real marketing of real concepts.

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Naseem Javed, recognized as a world authority on corporate image and global name identities, is a harsh critic of casual and accidental naming. He is a dynamic speaker on corporate image and branding issues, and is also the author of Naming for Power. He founded ABC Namebank International, an image and branding consultancy over 25 years ago.
Website: www.abcnamebank.com