Automotive rebrands make no sense | Axon’s Automotive Anorak

Both Aston Martin and Bugatti have recently and mysteriously followed much of the motoring herd and modified their long established and familiar ‘calling card’ brand logos, with no compelling reason as to why.

In Aston Martin’s case, its famous winged logo dates back to 1927 (when the previous marque badge of a centred and intertwined A and M was dropped), with the words ‘Aston Martin’ proudly set in uppercase within the winged design in a rectangle; often with a green background. This 1927 logo was subtly refined in 1932 when the wings were made flatter and more horizontal, and fundamentally this badge design had remained unchanged for 90 years, until a few weeks ago. The Aston Martin wording-style has now been updated with a more modern font, said to appeal to a younger audience. No mention has been made of Aston Martin updating the equally long-running Lagonda logo though, in time for its top-line luxury marque’s revival as a maker of exclusive luxury electric SUVs.

In the case of Bugatti, that marque’s familiar oval red-coloured logo, surrounded by 60 tiny red dots with founder Ettore Bugatti’s EB initials fused together above the word ‘Bugatti’, with the E reversed, had been unchanged for even longer than Aston Martin’s. This badge had remained unchanged for more than a century, but Bugatti’s Volkswagen Group masters have now (pointlessly) refreshed it, removing the red oval badge surround and Bugatti wording to just leave the reversed fused EB as its new badge. Quite why is a mystery, when after 100 years or more the whole world almost certainly knows what a Bugatti badge looks like and what it means by now.

Within the last five years or so, a staggering number of vehicle manufacturers have also modified their logos, especially since the year 2020, mostly for the claimed reason to ‘better reflect the modern digital age’, although I suspect that most of the real reason has been based on cost grounds, with a one-dimensional single-tome sticker, as quite a few car brands have moved to, being considerably cheaper and less complex to produce than a more elaborate raised badge.

In most cases the fundamental design of the badge hasn’t changed too much, in order not to make it beyond cognition (with the very recent exception of Dacia with its quite funky new DC logo; the D being reversed), as the likes of Volkswagen, BMW, Volvo, Renault, Nissan and others, have all retained the basic shape and recognisable form and design of their corporate branding, but just simplified it, making it look considerably cheaper and more down-market, in my view.

Take the new BMW logo, for example. Its previous pleasing silver sans-serif BMW lettering on a black surrounding circular ring stood out. This has now gone as the Bavarian marque’s logo has changed to a single blue tone, still retaining BMW’s iconic blue/clear four-sectioned quadrants (the four sections suggesting a spinning aircraft propeller, to reflect BMW’s First World War aviation roots). The less premium Nissan’s new logo design has modernised its badge a little more convincingly, dropping all colour whilst keeping the bold 'Nissan' name on a central bar, placed within the suggestion of a now broken outline that dates back to the Brand’s Datsun roots, that always reminded me of a London Underground tube station logo.

Opel, Vauxhall, Peugeot, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Cadillac, Dodge, Proton, MG and Kia have all seen their logos updated in recent years, some with mixed results. In the case of Kia, the logo now being so big that you must be able to see it from the moon. Each of these marques will have spent (wasted?) eye-watering sums of money on rebranding. These enormous costs have to be spread across global retail dealership signs, parts packaging, logo stamping on each vehicle’s components, updating all digital outlets and printed materials, all potentially jeopardising consumer familiarity, and so on. 

Revising a logo design is a big job, not to be taken lightly, and the associated costs can run into many thousands/millions of pounds, dollars, yen, Euros, or any other currency that you care to mention. The fact that car makers are still okay to invest enormous sums into revising their branding is all the more astonishing when you consider just how tough the car making and selling environment currently is. It’s still feeling the effects of the Covid epidemic, with a shortage of key components (especially microchips) and the need to replace all internal combustion-engined vehicles and develop new electric and hybrid-powered solutions. Surely car makers have bigger, more pressing priorities than introducing a mildly-updated badge to consider in these uncommonly challenging times when money is tight?

Motoring history had shown us that rebranding a floundering marque when the going is tough is rarely the solution to creating a positive change in fortunes and sending buyers flocking to the showrooms to place an order. Compelling recent proof of this is a trio of once-high volume American marques - Plymouth, Oldsmobile and Mercury.

All three American brands were failing to attract new, younger buyers, and each had its logo completely redesigned to try and convince the world that the maker had changed and reinvented itself. Plymouth was treated to a brand-new badge design late on, to coincide with the launch of exciting Prowler hot rod model. But the buyers still kept away from the showrooms, just as they did when General Motors (GM) introduced a stylish new badge for its oldest marque – Oldsmobile – now represented by an all-chrome (plastic) oval with the graphic representation of a soaring rocket. This ‘re-invented’ Oldsmobile, along with possibly the best car models GM offered in the USA in the early Noughties – the very capable Aurora and Intrigue – unfortunately failed to reverse Oldsmobile’s fortune, with the aged marque of 1897 finally bowing out in 2004. It was a similar story for Mercury too, Ford’s mid-range marque, sandwiched between Ford and its Lincoln luxury make. With falling sales, Ford completely revised its Mercury brand logo at huge cost, with a graphic interpretation of the marque’s traditional winged helmet of the Roman god Mercury. Ford eventually laid the brand to rest in 2011.

Despite going through the painful, and costly process of a rebrand, usually not needed and often set to confuse consumers, a number of car makers have sensibly not felt the need to pointlessly update their logo and try and reinvent themselves.

Among those subscribing to the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ solution are Ford; its familiar blue oval badge with ornate three-dimensional shaded Ford script first being introduced 110 years ago in 1912, with its last attempt at an update appearing before the Second World War. In the UK, Ford had the good sense to begin fitting the famous blue oval corporate Ford badge to all of its models in the 1960s, after applying ornate and confusing ‘Ford of England’ badges to its older Popular and Zephyr models post-war. 

The same goes for Honda, (its chromed capital H appearing on every Honda car model since  building its first passenger car in 1963), Rolls-Royce (the intertwined double R remaining unchanged since altering from red to back letters in 1934, Ferrari (the celebrated black prancing horse on a yellow background; the official colour of the city of Modena, where Ferrari is based, topped off by the green, white and red of the Italian flag), Lamborghini (its gold snorting bull signifying power and strength, with the gold surround of Lambos back shield used to convey excellence), Porsche (the logo design dating back to 1952, with another prancing horse, the city crest of Porsche Stuttgart home, with six stylised antlers and red and gold colour scheme adapted for the German regional coat of arms), Subaru (like Ford, this innovative Japanese brand has used a blue-colour oval badge for many years, its six silver stars representing the half-dozen divisions of Subaru’s Fuji Heavy Industries group parent) and Suzuki, with its large stylised ’S'.

Other successful car makers, such as the current world’s number one vehicle maker – Toyota – surprisingly went without a universally recognisable logo on its products until as recently as 1989, when Toyota first introduced its design of three interlocking ovals to commemorate the company’s 50^th anniversary. Up until this time Toyota confusingly used separate logos for individual model types, with one single common logo to bring these models all together under one brand umbrella as part of the Toyota family. Cleverly, the symmetrical design of the three oval Toyota always looks the same, whether viewed straight on, or seen in the rear-view mirror.  Unlike many of its rivals, Toyota is concentrating its profits on making reliable vehicles, rather than wastefully squandering its resources on redesigning its logo.