One of the designers of the new UC logo explains why he thinks it’s exciting and necessary.
A lot of folks aren’t in that camp (at least 33,000, according to Change.org), leading to personal attacks like this one on UC’s creative director, Vanessa Correa:
It’s also a heavy topic of discussion on Reddit’s Berkeley community. What do you think of the logo?
(If you’re curious, BTW, Fast Company has a piece explaining the reasoning on the change, which was part of a complete rebranding.)
The Moscow version of Starbucks is encouraging people with coffee cups to buy postcards that let you cover up the sleeves of knockoff brands to replace with Starbucks. We want this, except with a generic cup brand, so that we can cover up the fact we went to Starbucks.
![The Olympics and social media: When restrictive brand standards stifle everyone
Hey dudes! Here’s the latest entry in our weekly post series, “The Pitch.” This post, written by SFB editor Ernie Smith, considers the wider ramifications of Twitter’s incident with Guy Adams — particularly its ties to the Olympics’ heavy branding and strict rules. Find Ernie on Twitter over here.
Last week, journalist Guy Adams learned about The Olympics’ corporate influence the hard way. The reporter and blogger for The Independent, who snarked heavily about NBC ahead of the Olympic opening ceremonies, spent much of last week reacting to the fallout around his Twitter account getting suspended. Why did this happen? And why are relatively open social networks suddenly feeling a lot less open in the wake of the Olympics? It all starts with the branding, and an organization that wants to ensure tight control over every aspect. But does that work in today’s era of share-everything social media? ShortFormBlog’s very own Ernie Smith analyzes the the conflict between brand control and social media overzealousness. Read more after the jump.
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Preface: The importance of branding
The hundreds of millions of pounds necessary to organise and stage the Games is being raised by the London 2012 Organising Committee (LOCOG) from the private sector. In return for investing in the Games, we have promised our sponsors and merchandise licensees exclusive rights to use the London 2012 brand.
The London Olympics branding page • Describing the reasons why the event’s branding is extremely strict. The branding page describes a number of extremely strict standards as to which companies and private officials can use the Olympic marks — to the point where a section of the branding guidelines describes whether or not you can plant a version of the rings in your own private garden. Based on this page, we can’t use a picture of the rings on this article, though we can use the word Olympics to our heart’s content. So let’s do so. Here’s the SEO version of our brand guideline conversation: Olympics, London Olympics, London Olympics 2012, London Olympics Sports, London Olympics Branding Guidelines, IOC, Parlympics, Citius Altius Fortius, and so on. See that, LOCOG? You can’t do a thing to us about that sentence, because we’re writing an article! HAHAH! source
Why the tight standards? Money
$17 billion estimated cost of the London Olympic games source
$860M the amount security, thousands of soldiers provided by the British government, will cost
$1.2B the amount Visa predicts consumer spending will rise during the London Olympics
$20B the amount David Cameron believes the games will generate for the country
» And don’t forget the branding and distribution deals: How do they pay for all this stuff? Beyond the public funding, it comes down to sponsorship and broadcasting deals, of course! A number of major brands, from Acer and Panasonic to Visa and McDonald’s, pay a lot of money to be exclusive sponsors of the event. And broadcasting deals, like NBC’s multi-billion-dollar deal, also count for a massive chunk. These two sources — branding and broadcasting — pay for 92 percent of the International Olympic Committee’s funding. So there is a major financial incentive for the IOC to keep the limitations as strict as possible.
And hence, the crackdown …
beatsIf you’re an athlete and you’re spotted wearing a pair of Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, expect to get a stern talking-to over the matter, as Panasonic is the only brand you can use.
friesWant to eat a bag of chips that have nothing to do with a pair of golden arches? Hope you like fish, as Olympic officials are only allowing non-sanctioned chips to be sold with fish. Seriously.
wifiThe wireless access at the Olympic venues? A steep £5.99 for 90 minutes, thanks to a deal BT has. And don’t bring your own wi-fi, because people with detectors will hunt you down.
Where the social networks come in
Try sharing this video on Facebook or another site. Watch what happens. Weird, eh? That’s because, due to restrictions on the content, this video has been blocked from sharing on many sites due to a lack of contracts with NBC Universal. While contract deals such as this one are somewhat common with big media companies, this case seems somewhat bizarre, as NBC doesn’t appear to have anything to do with the making of this video, which was directed by an Olympic swimmer, and other clips on the U.S. Olympic Swimming Team’s page remain shareable. This suggests one thing — The Olympics are such a big deal that those who make deals to carry coverage are willing to bend the rules to win them over. Which leads us to the tale of unlucky, snarky journalist Guy Adams.
Twitter tips off a TV network
We want to apologize for the part of this story that we did mess up. The team working closely with NBC around our Olympics partnership did proactively identify a Tweet that was in violation of the Twitter Rules and encouraged them to file a support ticket with our Trust and Safety team to report the violation, as has now been reported publicly. Our Trust and Safety team did not know that part of the story and acted on the report as they would any other.
A message from Twitter • Apologizing for its handling of the suspension of Guy Adams’ Twitter account, which appears to have been brought on by two factors: One, NBC had an agreement with Twitter to help share content, which led to employees working on that team noticing a comment they may have ignored otherwise; and two, Adams tweeting out the e-mail address of an NBC executive, in apparent violation of Twitter’s rules. After Twitter tipped off NBC, the network requested the account be suspended. An outcry ensued, and eventually both NBC and Twitter relented. Adams now has nearly 20,000 Twitter followers as a result of the notoriety he gained from last week’s incident.
The athletes feel stifled on Twitter, too
Meet Olympic hurdler Dawn Harper. Recently, Harper and a handful of other athletes have taken to Twitter with complaints about “Rule 40,” a restriction in the United Kingdom that limits them from being able to mention their own sponsors during the Olympics, or featuring in advertising around a non-sponsor brand. To give you an example of this in action: Apolo Ohno features prominently in advertising for Subway right now, even though speed skating is a Winter Olympics sport and Subway counts Michael Phelps as one of their spokespeople. That’s because, by this rule in the United Kingdom and by agreement elsewhere, athletes can’t show up in non-sponsor ads during the Olympics. Harper has been among the loudest complainants over this issue.
So, where is the line, anyway?
You don’t want to protect that investment so much that you piss off everyone. You’ve got to keep sensible about it and you’ve got to remember that the moment that you as a brand by protecting your own brand start inhibiting consumer choice and consumer behavior … then that’s when you start risking impacting and affecting your brand.
Edelman Digital Director Matthew Gain • Discussing the issue that the IOC and other Olympic-related groups will face as the Olympics go on. While understanding as to why the IOC would want such control, considering the commercial realities, Gain suggests that by going after small companies or people merely trying to get into the Olympic spirit, they may be doing more harm than good. ”I think if it’s a mum and dad business that’s not really benefiting from the Olympics but getting into the Olympic spirit … that’s probably where you’ve gone a little bit too far.” That probably counts for the commenters and broadcasters, too. source
What we should take from all this
Why did Guy Adams’ Twitter account get suspended? Let’s put it this way: Adams probably screwed up by posting that e-mail address, but his account was noticed (and the situation taken more seriously than it would have been otherwise) because an air of normalcy was created by all these brand agreements, even though they’re anything but normal. When there are so many moving parts and so much protection around a brand and a reputation, what seems absurd to the outside world starts looks normal for someone having to work within these rules. If we could rewrite the Olympics script for 2016 or even 2014, here’s what we’d suggest:
one The Olympics are a important event and one with a huge financial windfall for the host country. But the costs of running the Olympics are so high that the event, sadly, reeks of corporate influence, from NBC to the official brand sponsors. What’s the point where the cost outweighs the benefit?
two Both the Olympics and NBC need to consider the implications of the restrictive culture around the Olympics in 2012 — because it’s feasible to imagine damage to the brand’s reputation in the long run if they don’t loosen their brand standards. Four words: Creative Commons-licensed content.
three The reason people got angry about the Guy Adams situation is because it was a sign Twitter is becoming more corporate and less free. We expect total freedom from our social networks, and no single brand, not even the Olympics, is worth violating that trust. Next time, stay out of the fray, Twitter.
Ernie Smith the editor of ShortFormBlog and a social media journalist for TMG Custom Media. He likes “The Room.” Reach him at @ShortFormErnie.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8contM9Hm1qas8z9o1_500.jpg)
Hey dudes! Here’s the latest entry in our weekly post series, “The Pitch.” This post, written by SFB editor Ernie Smith, considers the wider ramifications of Twitter’s incident with Guy Adams — particularly its ties to the Olympics’ heavy branding and strict rules. Find Ernie on Twitter over here.
Last week, journalist Guy Adams learned about The Olympics’ corporate influence the hard way. The reporter and blogger for The Independent, who snarked heavily about NBC ahead of the Olympic opening ceremonies, spent much of last week reacting to the fallout around his Twitter account getting suspended. Why did this happen? And why are relatively open social networks suddenly feeling a lot less open in the wake of the Olympics? It all starts with the branding, and an organization that wants to ensure tight control over every aspect. But does that work in today’s era of share-everything social media? ShortFormBlog’s very own Ernie Smith analyzes the the conflict between brand control and social media overzealousness. Read more after the jump.
![matthew:
A memorial GIF[t] for my last day at Tumblr. I will definitely miss you guys.
(Special thanks to lulinternet and topherchris for the animated farewell. Judging by this, I may want to use my newfound free time to consult an orthodontist.)
Matt Hackett, Tumblr’s head of brand strategy and marketing is out, the second high-profile departure in three weeks — and one that comes while the company is starting to push its advertising machine. (ProducerMatthew has the scoop.) This GIF is certainly a nice way to go out.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3vmwgLr8B1qzfduso1_500.gif)
A memorial GIF[t] for my last day at Tumblr. I will definitely miss you guys.
(Special thanks to lulinternet and topherchris for the animated farewell. Judging by this, I may want to use my newfound free time to consult an orthodontist.)
Matt Hackett, Tumblr’s head of brand strategy and marketing is out, the second high-profile departure in three weeks — and one that comes while the company is starting to push its advertising machine. (ProducerMatthew has the scoop.) This GIF is certainly a nice way to go out.
We really just kind of put the shirt out there this week. It’s not necessarily profit at all. I wanted to bring some awareness to the issue. I felt it would be a good way to expose the store, to get our name out there.Young Nation Apparel owner Karriem Muhammad • Discussing his choice to sell a $35 hoodie with the phrase ”Please Don’t Shoot Me I Only Have Skittles And A Drink!!!” on it — a clear reference to the Trayvon Martin case. Muhammad and others are selling apparel referencing the case, some in Sanford, Fla., where the shooting took place. But selling such products is not necessarily an idea with ulterior motives. “People can start to wear their feelings and emotions. It makes sense, even if there’s a profit motive,” noted Donna Hoffman, a marketing professor at the University of California-Riverside. “There’s a legitimate interest in sharing the pain, and these products do that.” Even so, Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, filed for trademarks for products referencing her son, a move intended to block the exploitation of her son’s name. What do you guys think? Are such products exploitative?
I think it’s completely gross that Paula Deen made $$$ pushing food that makes you sick and will now make $$$ pushing the medication for it.Twitter user @BradWalsh • Discussing TV chef Paula Deen’s decision to announce that she suffers from diabetes — and at the same time using the opportunity to play spokeswoman for a major diabetes drug company, Novo Nordisk AS. Branding experts think this is an poor way to handle the issue. ”It’s a big change to expect consumers to buy into,” said Allen Adamson, managing director of branding firm Landor New York. We’re with the branding dude. It’s as if she’s trying to reboot herself because she’s in a corner. source (via • follow)
“It’s vital our fans have trust in everything Hanson do,” Zac Hanson, the band’s now 26-year old drummer, explained. “We are soon going to be selling our own beer. I’m not joking - MMMhop IPA anyone?”
MMMhop IPA? Hanson, that’s brilliant.
Today in products with perfect names.
It finally happened. Google+ killed our official account. This is what it looks like to have a dead account. To make up for this, follow me over here. I’ll do the same type of posting as our mascot Julius, except less-brandy. Bummer, too. We had over 500 followers on the account. But then again, it’s not like they didn’t say anything about this.
Because, let’s face it, the one thing that the world needed was Daft Punk’s motif all over a couple of Coke bottles, right? Awesome, yes, but we’re not even sure if Moby would’ve gone for a sellout opportunity this calculatedly commercial. Good work, French guys. source
In her last days, my mother occasionally became confused....
”The reporter...
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#FMMDI (at 30 Rockefeller Plaza)
Earlier this week: Gap The Gap, an ultra-iconic, ultra-basic brand of basic clothing, decided to redo its logo to look like every other logo on the Internet. People hate it. The company tries to crowdsource a new logo. People complain about that too.
Today: MySpace Apparently looking to up the ante, MySpace takes a cue from AOL and redesigns their logo in such a way that it can use secondary art. Too bad they took out the word “space” and replaced it with a madlib. sourceCopyright 2009-2013 Ernie Smith • Ask us stuff! • E-mail us • Follow us on Twitter • Follow us on Facebook
