Brand Integrity Blog » Arnell's "Breathtaking" Pepsi Rebrand

Back to Brand Integrity Home Written on 17-Feb-2009 by russell.volckmann

Now that initial the shock of the elaborate Arnell branding scheme [PDF] for Pepsi is over, it is time to consider the actual implications of the Work.

Many branding professionals (including myself) criticized Pepsi's product rebranding back in November '08. Incoming comments seemed to support disdain for the appearance of yet another Pepsi brand folly. And from the outset, the recently floated Arnell paper Breathtaking appeared preposterous and elaborate pretzel logic—further fueling the criticism.

Some people may or may not be crazy about the new bottles looking like ribbed condoms, but even if Arnell's foundations appear silly or contrived, some end results may have merit.

new-pepsi-line___2441551459e34aada79120c49b926dc6(376x281)__45__.jpg

EVEN A BROKEN CLOCK IS RIGHT TWICE A DAY

The more we delve into this Pepsi brand work-in-progress from Arnell, the more it may warrant rethinking previous arguments against the new graphical marks—broken from a normal linear graphical identity in terms of both development method and graphical fruition.

I cannot speak to the existence of Pepsi Energy Fields or Feng Shui of the intrinsically Ying Yang -like Pepsi mark(s); or the relationship between the Earth's Magnetic Dynamics vs. gestalt of The Pepsi Globe Dynamics. Great googley moogley. But Arnell makes other interesting conclusions that may indeed be valid despite pointing to physical phenomena entirely unrelated to brand.

BACK INTO THE FUTURE

Leading the future incarnations of the product brands & marks based on self-altered trajectory? Getting ahead of the brand curve by altering the path, such as through a cosmic wormhole? Put another way, think about brands and marks in new ways; deal with modern branding challenges by reinventing when necessary. Anticipate future challenges. Nothing new here, really.

ADDRESSING TRIBAL MARKETS

Arnell's Pepsi Universe contains a near infinite variety of Pepsi product logo permutations. A few of them are below.

Brand fragments to address an increasingly splintered tribal marketplace? Multiple brand points of view for related products? Anticipating a future line of spinoff products equally as numerous? Pepsi now moves from a flat 2D approach to a three-dimensional outlook, with a three-dimensional graphical perspective to match—brand emoticons spun off from an existing brand theme. Now we're talking.

Arnell considered that there are people/ customers/ tribal markets with varying points of view, and rejected the mass-brand effort as no longer relevant. In effect, the new brand expression appears to be as much a part of the natural order as past/ current/ future natural states created by expanding universe Big Bang forces. The comparison may be nothing more than a metaphor, but is a powerful way to illustrate the natural forces of the modern marketplace trajectory. Tribal and nomadic.

CHANGE vs. STABILITY

Some brands may never change their outward identity by more than a hair every 10 years, and be just fine the way they are. Time-honored traditions, rock-solid and continuously embraced brands, equally as relevant now as they were 100 years ago.

But if change you must, then by all means have at it with as much thought, art, and science poured over the mix until it looks like a brand renaissance—and that it does the job of re-engaging audiences. Whether Pepsi accomplishes re-engagement is another matter. Whether the deeper chasms of Pepsi's brand can reconnect is another matter still.

Your thoughts? Do you like the Pepsi product ID? Does the Arnell paper change your perception of the Pepsi brand?

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Tags: rebranding,pepsi,arnell,re-branding

Comments

written on 17-Feb-2009
julio.ferro says:
OMG, gravitational fields! Consultants are reinventing the wheel everyday!! Hahahah
written on 17-Feb-2009
russell.volckmann says:
Je Julio, welcome back from vacation!

I thought this one might get your attention

Understanding of course this paper was probably more part of a client pitch than the end result—do you think any of Arnell's ideas make any sense? Why or why not?
written on 18-Feb-2009
rumstubby says:
I think the ideas make some sense if applied to a general creative process but when it comes to the "3 second rule" I don't think the consumer will care if there isn't any part of that story being communicated in a memorable way.
In my experience, simple and clean are always better.
I actually think the clean lines in the new Pepsi logo are a good idea. Who decided that going back to blends and gradients was esthetically sound? It's like when everyone had all kinds of animation and complex navigation online because of the power of Flash. Just because you have the ability to do something doesn't mean it's a good idea.
written on 18-Feb-2009
julio.ferro [http://webjam.com/heydesign] says:
Agree with rumstubby. I use to discuss this kind of internal and sexy metaphors if the consumer is not going to catch it up on the fly because it sounds like rocket science.
I mean, I love and use metaphors for everything but this concept has gone too far IMHO.
Innovation should go along with relevance and this galactic script sounds lovely, but not relevant for the common people.
written on 18-Feb-2009
russell.volckmann says:
Of course, agreed... the interplanetary police should come down on these guys hard---but the point was despite all the BS, in the end we have sort of tribal splinters of the same brand--and that may make sense for Pepsi; even though the gravitational ding dong may be out of whack

And from a design point of view, Arnell's vision was a 3-dimensional perspective--in both a 2D art representation, and actual 3D logos on product cans and displays. Check out the full document.

Whether you hate it or you like it aesthetically, I see value in that aspect of Arnell's work.
written on 18-Feb-2009
cristian.saracco says:
Scotty, beam me up!....

This looks like a story told after the dissaster to show a sort of rationale behind the scene!....

I think that "standard people" (not so dummy, not so smart) do not understand this. Even more, I don not know if they see the difference (e.g.) between the two first bottles' brand expressions!

Julius!... Consultants are great!.... At least some of them ...
written on 18-Feb-2009
julio.ferro says:
In this case, some design consultants are great
written on 18-Feb-2009
rumstubby says:
The bottom line is that it appears that Pepsi is still confused about who they are to the consumer. Cleaning up their logo is one thing but moving forward with multiples is something completely different.
I also think there will be some fall out from the changes to the Mountain Dew identity. The following of that brand in the extreme sports world is not something that needs to be tweeked much. I guess we'll see.
written on 18-Feb-2009
julio.ferro says:
Read the Pepsi logo response
written on 18-Feb-2009
rumstubby says:
OMG. That is perfect.
written on 18-Feb-2009
russell.volckmann says:
Ja ja ja!

I knew this would be a fun discussion
written on 18-Feb-2009
julio.ferro [http://webjam.com/heydesign] says:
See? My design faculty was pretty influenced with the ULM methodology those years. But all that science at the end of the day was just for designers running behind a huge carrot while your friends and family (real people) saw you as a schizophrenic.

Those days were wonderful in terms of experimentation and ways to push the boundaries working on weird projects. But once in the street I've realized that everything we do is a promise and It should be relevant, at least for a while.

The document sounds a little nerdy, the overall design IMHO is pretty bland compared with Coca-Cola's rebranding. I think this kind of experiments would apply for different and micro segments. Not for FMCG or financial services!!

I think the future will need more dynamic identities as Pepsi try to do, but I'm not convinced to do this with an evolution. If we have to design from the scratch, there's a nice opportunity to play with "liquid identities".
written on 19-Feb-2009
russell.volckmann says:
And I forgot to mention: The Pepsi logo is a veritable Da Vinci Code of branding! http://gawker.com/5150582/breathtaking-document-reveals-pepsis-logo-is-pinnacle-of-entire-universe
written on 02-Mar-2009
THEARTIFACT [http://thedreamcontinued.wordpress.com/] says:
This is an eye opener for me. I never knew all this about Pepsi, I only knew I loved it and it's 'quarky' little logo and ads! I am a mindless Pepsi lemming! )
written on 07-Apr-2009
russell.volckmann [http://www.webjam.com/brandintegrity] says:
Julio, hey I just saw your response... I can see in much of your portfolio that Ülm/ Bauhaus approach to design... my kind of design all the way.

Liquid identities... good one!

Fairly much agreed on two fronts... and again, beyond the wild metaphors of Arnell's Breathtaking... :

(1) Segmenting/ tribalizing for financial? Probably not, but these days, I would say the financials need to take a cold hard look at re-shaping the brand drivers. Their modus operandi is a disaster, and needs a new set of values that are sustainable. The fruition in terms of visual identity needs to accomplish those newly defined objectives.

(2) Dynamic evolving brand... as long as the objectives of a company/ product offering are in alignment with the audiences, I say anything goes depending on what it is companies want to accomplish. The problem with Pepsi of course is that their brand has had identity issues probably since Day One, when they were living the challenger brand persona through their graphical mark. Then they continue to make the situation worse by simply reflecting the worst trend of the day in order to always (try to) seem "modern". Unfortunately as we both know, this has also been a failure... the new Arnell marks and physical IDs? Maybe not great, but maybe as good as we can expect from Pepsi!
written on 08-Apr-2009
julio.ferro says:
Sure, but just the visual language. I still don't understand Tomas Maldonado. Do you know him? He was the chairman at Ulm and he's argentine as well. But he's so scientific that I can't understand a word! Shame on me!
written on 08-Apr-2009
russell.volckmann says:
Well I understand when Maldonado said "the suppression of imbeciles in art is essential"

Seriously, it's been a long time since I read any of his articles or books, but I know that his appeal was to a scientifically objective and socially aware design in general. Were there any specific parts of Maldonado's writings or theories that you think are confusing?
written on 08-Apr-2009
julio.ferro says:
I've stil got some papers from my History course, but they're hard to translate.
See? I love Dieter Rams. He knew how to take down to the earth the Ulm theory, but taking into account innovation, momentum and people. Simply a genius!
written on 08-Apr-2009
russell.volckmann says:
Ah yes, our buddy Herr Rams.... Less is more!
written on 08-Apr-2009
russell.volckmann says:
Now repeat after me...
written on 28-Apr-2009
Bruce A. Steinberg says:
So nice to see the designers debating good design. We need more of that. How about all you designers figure out a way to get these products out of plastic and out of the stomachs of the giant fish and the beaches throughout the world.

Floating down the Ganges River at sunrise and seeing Aquafina bottles washed up along the shore of an ancient (yet dirty) city was one of the ugliest sites I could ever remember. Pepsi had invaded even the holiest city in India... there was no stopping them.

But YES!!! They hired Peter Arnell!!! Yippee... step one in BRAND DESTRUCTION!!!.

The little graphic of the 4 bottles each with different pepsi logos looks oh so clever... but that in no reflects real life. And sorry to wake up all the good designers out there... but NO ONE CARES!!!!!! Maybe you should all your great graphic talent and put it to better use than throw away bottles of garbage juice and let's end this silly debate about whether or not Pepsi did a smart thing.

I think we all know in our heart of hearts... they did this to smoke their own crack and had no concern whatsoever for the how the people who drink this garbage may respond to these designs.