Company Rebrands: Hot or Not?

 

Author Bio: Dean DeCarlo is the Founder and President of Mission Disrupt, Mission Disrupt is an industry-leading digital marketing agency providing services in digital strategy, Management of Google, Facebook, TikTok ads, and user experience design. DeCarlo founded Mission Disrupt in 2015 with the goal of helping companies leverage digital channels to form deep relationships with their customers. Mission Disrupt is dedicated to assisting large to mid-sized companies captivate users with dynamic experiences, digital advertising, and engaging creative design. Visit: https://missiondisrupt.com. Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/dean-decarlo/

 

 

GM

This rebrand comes as GM looks to go into the electric revolution. Ranking as a definitive “Hot”, at first glance this new design is a shock, as it always is, when something this classic changes. The brand has gone completely lowercase more or less, which signals friendliness. Now, only the lowercase “m” is underlined, which is being utilized in all of GM’s promotion for the basic technology surrounding their electric car.  

 

  

Burger King

With the majority opinion being a “Not” so hot rebrand, this new logo happens to simply be their old logo. Yet, there is no question that Burger King should run far away from their previous 1980’s/1990’s starstruck logo, as it was clearly designed with first-generation computer graphics and three dimensions. But this rebrand just screams, “This is a brand that is really afraid of making any change and being anything other than what it already is.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KIA

Admitting that KIA’s old logo needed to go, the new logo is a little wrong but mostly right. KIA seems to be on the right track, but this new logo has a little problem with legibility. From a design perspective, the new product branding is first-class. Yet, the new logo is not quite there, but it is close. However, the ‘K’ is a tough letter to design, as the leg of the ‘K’ in their new logo creates a noticeably odd triangle of negative space. When thickening the leg of the ‘K’ slightly to the left, the new logo becomes more legible. Due to this minor issue, KIA’s new logo is a ‘Hot’ rebrand.

 

 

King Arthur Flour Company 

This certified ‘Hot’ rebrand paved a much-needed change for the baking brand. The 230-year-old brand first changed its name from the King Arthur Flour Company to King Arthur Baking company, emphasizing the company’s expanded lines of kitchen products from pizza accessories to baking pans and cooking ingredients. The logo dropped the traditional “horse and flag holder” drawing and opted for a more modern crown iconography, which still pays homage to its roots. The simplification of the logo allows it to be easily spotted on shelves, as well as online across its digital channels. This rebrand easily paid off in 2020, with Adweek reporting a 2,000% increase in sales during the early stages of the pandemic back in March of 2020. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MGM

MGM’s “Leo the Lion” logo is one of the most recognized symbols in Hollywood. This year the company opted in to further simplify the logo, with the addition of a few CGI touch-ups. Most notably, MGM adjusted the logo’s typeface from Serif to the trending and now very standard “Sans Serif” font style. While it’s not nearly the worst rebrand seen in the last year, MGM receives a thumbs down for its lack of creativity and simply following the typeface “San Serif” trends of 2021.