Russell Beattie Notebook – New Palm Logo Analysis

Russ made a comment on the most recent change of logos at Palm.

Link: Russell Beattie Notebook – New Palm Logo Analysis.

Call me a stick in the mud, but I think the new Palm logo doesn’t have the same cool-factor that the first one did. The old one reminds me of BMW – especially when you see it as a button on a device – it conveys a sense of technical excellence. The new one is like a dot-com startup which alludes to the old logo, but then adds orange as a sign of "innovation," but I don’t think it works.

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Not to mention the fact that they’re throwing away years of brand-recognition as well…

Being from a marketing group at Nokia, I think deeply about corporate brands. Whenever we did anything, such as Lifeblog or Series 60, we always thought of the look and feel of the app and marketing material, consistency, clarity, credibility, made gradual changes, and so on.

I was blessed to receive brand training (brand culture, more like it) from the top gurus from Nokia themselves, the ones who have been growing it for the past 10-15 years. One of the first exercises was to find dumb-brand-director moves at other companies. My example was the big change Palm did (that very day) from the strong brand recognition of the Palm name and colours to Palmone and the stupid garish brown and orange.

Yes, that was basically brand suicide.

I get a feeling that Palm finally shot that stupid brand director and brought back the old one to straighten out the brand again. But, the change will be gradual. And a lot of equity was lost – hmm, might that help explain Palm’s invisibility in the current market? We always point to the contributions of brand screw ups to the fall of a company.

Palm’s best bet is to fade to just the name, no button or anything. Turn the text black or blue (no pun there, just get rid of the orange). They should also run a brand building campaign to expunge the orange – maybe a ‘Palm then, Palm now’ campaign, maybe even a ‘Palm oops’, too, and laugh at the orange (I mean, you can’t really hide it any more).

I heard some other things I don’t know if I can repeat, but I get the feeling that over the next few years, Palm will regain their brand recognition and take a better ownership of their historical brand.

I mean, why throw away the lead? Now they are like everyone else and have to (re)gain it.