File this under “Who gives a fuck”: another total wank from Wolff, Olins

Those of you who are connoisseurs of ugliness will know that a few million have been pissed away on the astoundingly ugly British Olympics logo, which is the visual equivalent of dog shit.

Now I see the corporate idiots who mismanage AOL (fondly known to those who have suffered from their service as Arseholes On Line) have found their design soul-mates by getting the same firm to design a new logo.

You can just see what masquerades as thinking behind this. Quite simply, some boardroom monkey got sold a bill of goods under the heading of “rebranding”. CorporoTwats just love rebranding because it calls for so much less thought or effort than trying to produce a better service than their competitors. You just pay some wankers in ponytails to do a new design and – hey, all the punters are just bound to say – “Ah. AOL have a new logo. Let’s all forget about the shit service they gave me and switch back to them.” Right? Wrong.

This little piece of witless marketing masturbation was announced as follows. “To coincide with its de-coupling from Time Warner and its shares being offered on the NYSE, AOL is unveiling a new logo. Designed by Wolff Olins, the new ID re-imagines AOL as Aol.”.
Re-imagines? Re-imagines? What utter bollocks. Anyhow, the period in “Aol.” is part of the logo, not just to tell you that a sentence has ended; and the lower case letters “are designed to be viewed against a backdrop of different images.”

Aol. says its new logo is “a simple, confident logotype, revealed by ever-changing images. It’s one consistent logo with countless ways to reveal.” To reveal what? Probably the vast, echoing vacuum that passes for strategy in their business.
Angels and ministers of grace defend us from such tripehounds.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

10 Comments

  1. DaveC

    I love how you use words…

    CorporoTwats… Re-imagines? … tripehounds…

    Thank you so much for providing my morning laugh.

    And FWIW I’ve always referred to it as Amateurs On Line, because once people realize how shitty the service is, they go elsewhere.

  2. Drayton – inspired by your latest piece I have re-originated a logo for Drayton Bird Associates:

    .DBa

    The dot represents the movement of your business towards the Internet, and, as you and others will immediately realise, puts the logo on par valuewise with .com, – a generic top-level domain (gTLD) used on the Internet's Domain Name System, and is one of the original top-level domains.

    This dot placement distinguishes your company from the lesser companies that use the dot AFTER their initials, which, of course depicts nothing out of the ordinary. Which is why and how Wolff Olins has basically shat on its whole process.

    The small 'a' represents the more than significant presence of your self as founder and senior party in the company that bears your name.

    *note*
    Although the above is not a piece of commissioned work, and preempts any design consultancy that may come through from your company to mine, the fee for usage of said .DBa would be £800,000, payment on first use thereof.

    Yours truly,

    Peter Hobday
    http://www.marketingbestpractice.co.uk

  3. The merger of Time Warner and AOL cost something close to $160 billion at the height of the dot com idiocy in 2000. Only a complete cock could think that they could recoup these costs.

    Now Aol (note the dramatic change of branding) is asking 2,900 employees to take voluntary redundancies and so hopes to make savings of over $300 million per year. Does this actually mean that the average cost per employee is therefore around $1 million? Still being run buy cocks then.

  4. One erudite friend wrote to tell me that the Olympics logo reminds him irresistibly of Lisa Simpson giving a blow-job. Have a look at it and see what you think

  5. Matt T

    Think you may have seen some of my work today via Bill Fryer – the £5 door drop. My boss has been trying to dig out his 1982 first edition of your book. Helped him build a £20 million biz from scratch. Ta very much on his behalf. He'll be gutted you're not coming in Jan with Bill.

    Anyhow that's an aside. Wolff Olins – they just make me spew. Not only is the Olympic logo the biggest pile of shite ever (ask around and see how many people actually realise it says 2012 – it's the Tiswas logo poorly disguised) – they've just arsed up the National Trust logo too.

    “The spokesman says, ‘Following research about the perception of the National Trust, we’ve decided to refresh the identity.’”

    With a clip art oak leaf/branch and a shit font. Genius. I mean seriously – that's literally it. Billing estimate anyone? An hour's work? Probably less.

    http://www.mad.co.uk/Main/News/Articles/da529c97b9494e76b74ec29b583b1706/Wolff-Olins-creates-new-National-Trust-identity.html

  6. Hey Matt: Jan? Bill? Who's your boss? Not Andrew is it?

  7. Matt T

    Jan=January. Bill=Bill Fryer. Boss=Stephen Allen.

    Check out 288group.com.

    Bill's coming to see us on 20th January re our website/e-marketing/door drop. He told me today he'd emailed our £5 doordrop to you? We hoped you might come too in Jan. Not that Bill won't be good enough. Just if you get Bill, you want Ben too. So to speak.

    So if you fancy a trip to the seaside to see what your shared wisdom has helped create – I'll stick the kettle on and get the Mr Kiplings in. Cheers Matt

  8. Ah! Now I realise what you're talking about, Matt (been a long day). That £5 for £5 idea was invented (I think) by Samlarhuset in Norway. Cleverest way of building a list I've come across in years.

  9. Matt T

    Impressive knowledge! Actually they nicked it from MDM in Germany who used to run a 5DM for 5DM campaign as their list building program. We pinched it from them. Samler pinched it from us and them! Samler now exist in the UK as the London Mint Office.

    It's still by far our best new name getter but where we used to run endless £5 for £5 press ads, over the last decade new names have dropped right off. Doordrops though are still doing well – we're just chasing the creative holy grail I guess. Current doordrop is in fact a manifestation of what was our best confirmation piece. Can't remember if that was one of your ideas or not? Good tip whoever came up with it.

  10. JC

    I believe that the letters “rse” would add some value.

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