Previous

Page - 2

Luckily, the Olympics is the modern world's icon extraordinaire and having personally marketed the1976 Summer Olympic of Montreal, I have witnessed the power of its name and what awesome global presence it carries. The London 2012 Games are not at all at the mercy of this new logo, as the ever-unique, powerful and recognizable image of the Five Rings will provide longevity to its ever growing brand.
In reality you need graphic overload and out of control logo treatments when your brand name identity has no value. What are the logos of Microsoft, Sony or Panasonic? What graphical techniques do they employ? Most smart corporations prefer powerful word marks, as their powerful, recognizable names stand alone in the rough marketplace and are not at the mercy of overblown graphics going through repeated treatments that are commonly labeled as brand positioning.

Clearly, there are two schools of thought; logo driven and name identity driven. The principal belief of major global logo-branding agencies that any name can become a super brand is based entirely on bottomless budgets, and if for any reason if it doesn't work, so what? Is this the reason why agencies are so often changed? Denials about the ultimate power of a global 5 Star Standard of Naming will continue to hurt the global ad industry. The other school of thought prophesies the new name-economy, in which name brands, as mature identities, skate on e-commerce from one region to another, amidst a highly mobile society that bears a strong understanding of the potential power behind the successful branding of a powerful name. As we approach the future, big logo-branding is dying fast while we enter into a cyber-geared-culture and a new name-driven-economy.

Concluded.

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