KFC from space…a new marketing strategy?

This has been circulating the net for a while, but I thought I would post it here because it has to do with marketing and advertising.

Kentucky Fried Chicken (owned by the same people who own Taco Bell and Pizza Hut) has just changed their logo. The new logo still features Colonel Sanders, but looks just a bit more updated than the 1997 version. The colors have been tweaked from “straight red” to a more maroon or brick red (possibly to catch new customers) and the lines of the logo are a lot simpler than the any of the previous logos. I think its interesting that people sitting in an office somewhere make these decisions and they are so slight… a tilted image here, color reconfiguration there….but you can hardly deny that the new logo doesn’t look more modernized.

Here are also some pics of logos from past years (the company has only changed its logo five times in the past 50 years!)

And how do they plan on unveiling this new logo? Well, apparently they have constructed a giant logo made up of “6,000 red, 14,000 white, 12,000 eggshell, 5,000 beige and 28,000 black” tiles. Pretty impressive. They seem to be trying capitalize on the popularity of programs like Google Earth….which is really the only way (other than flying directly above it) that you would be able to see it. At any rate….here is a pic of the monstrous logo:

Advertising and Marketing

Well…I thought that since we will be focusing some of our energy on marketing and design, that I would post a few sites I think are worth checking out regarding the topic.

BRAND NEW

This is a site that focuses on company logos and graphic design work (mostly). They have been focusing on when a company changes their “look” and have been offering insights into perhaps why the company changed and what effect the new logo has… Sometimes they they get a little technical and jargony for the layperson, but I think its fun to look at the pictures and compare old logos to new ones…Like this recent re-design from Old Navy (taken from the site):

What’s Old is New

I’m not sure exactly when this happened, but Old Navy has a new
mark. No press releases, no launch events, no announcements. I actually
couldn’t find anything anywhere, although I didn’t try calling anyone.
Old Navy simply updated their mark. They have refined the oval and
changed the typography. Nice.

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NOTCOT.

http://www.notcot.com/

http://www.notcot.org/

There are two divisions to this website. The .org and .com varieties. As far as I can tell, the .com version is the one that has a regular author who updates the website and finds interesting new things. And the .org version is all user submitted finds. Either way you want to go, this site has some pretty cool stuff…like this interesting piece of art:

Bert Simons paper clone was made using 3D CG techniques, then printed and glued together. (reminds me of #2020)

 

DESIGN 64

This one is along the lines of Brand New. They look at Graphic Design in society and lately they have noticed a lot of corporate re branding (changing a logo or image of a corporation in order to attract new customers) taking place. Sprite recently underwent a drastic change:

More re branding – Sprite

Everyone is re branding these days. I think Digital Arts will be the only one who stayed true to their design. Anyway SPRITE is has launched new packaging style so … what do you think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally here are some websites I think have great design, which in turn translates to great marketing.

The Format

This site is for a band from Tempe, AZ (where I used to live). The cool aspect of this site is that you get to fly a dog around a virtual space (kinda hard to explain) like a video game and that is how you explore the site. This concept also corresponds with their latest album called “Dog Problems.

 

Etsy

This is a site whose main focus is to sell things that people make. Every item they have on their website was made by someone somewhere in the country. The coolest aspect of this site is all of the ways that you can search for products. You can search by color, region of the country, most recently updated item, and many more (the search methods are located on the left hand side of the site) The creators of this website really put a lot of time into thinking about how the site would look to their customers. The result is a site that makes it fun to search for things to buy.

Nike Skateboarding

This is a site I just found, but I like the way it looks. It is a typical internet “storefront” for the new line of Nike skate shoes, but the extra details and features make it more than that. The pixelated Nike Swoosh when the site loads is a nice touch and goes nicely with the retro-techno look and feel of the website. If you are using the computers in the classroom, you are missing half of what makes this site cool (the old video game sound effects) , so make sure you check it out at home.

 

Finally…a website for BAD examples:

World’s Worst Website

 

 

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