KMK Law Intellectual Property Blog

This is an update on my November 9^th post regarding new and (sometime not) improved logos adopted by various companies.  In that post, I talked about how much I didn’t like Pepsi’s new logo, which to me looks like a store-brand, generic logo.  Well, perhaps Pepsi agrees with me (although I surely can’t take credit for Pepsi adjusting its marketing strategy), because while watching last weekend’s slate of NFL games, I was bombarded with commercials featuring this:

Apparently, in connection with an NFL promotion, Pepsi is currently marketing (for a limited time) Pepsi “Throwback.”  As far as I can tell, Pepsi “Throwback” is the “old” formula for Pepsi, as the packaging touts that the cola “contains real sugar.”  For this product, Pepsi has reverted to its old-school, 1980s era logo.

The timing of this move is curious, in large part because Pepsi’s new logo has been on the market for less than 9 months.  Either the new logo has been testing poorly among consumers (and sales have fallen off since the switch), or Pepsi just wants to muck up its rebranding a little more by reintroducing their well-known logo into the consciousness of consumers.  I’m hoping the former applies, because if it’s the latter, Pepsi maybe needs to hire a new ad agency. 

The toughest part of any rebranding is successfully communicating to your consumer base that the product you once enjoyed under the old logo is still the same despite the logo refresh.  That effort takes time, money, and repeated impressions.  Reverting to the old logo, particularly for a short-term promotion, is counterproductive and risks wasting all of the rebrand marketing spend.  This strategy only makes sense if Pepsi is going back to its old logo…permanently. 

So…maybe something’s up here.  Let’s follow along and see how this turns out.