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Comment by taeric | Hacker News Reader

I'm trying to think of a rebrand that I truly hated and that led to actual decline in something. I... can't.

There are plenty that I confess I don't like. But I would be struggling to put any actual significance to a label. The new street fighter one, as an example. I agree that it feels off that they are ditching the styling that they have used for literal decades. That said, I fail to see how that is at all important to the success/failure of the game they are building.

The MIT Press had an amusing amount of thought that went into their logo. But... I would wager the vast majority of folks just don't see it.

Reminds me of that parody pepsi logo document. (At least, I think it was a parody?)

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> I'm trying to think of a rebrand that I truly hated and that led to actual decline in something.

I'm not claiming that a bad rebrand spells doom for the entity (though I guess there are probably examples of that)—only that I can think of few rebrands where the new brand _made me more positively disposed towards the entity in question_.

And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one; consider this list of brand U-turns: https://www.yourprojector.com/rebranding-u-turns/

The last one is particularly hilarious, because I attended the University of Waterloo in the late 1990s when they rebranded from a crest even older than the one shown as "original". In fact, that older crest looked just like the "final" crest. I'm glad they've finally brought it back; pity it took more than a decade to rectify the error.

> Reminds me of that parody pepsi logo document. (At least, I think it was a parody?)

No, I'm pretty sure that was actually real. At least if it was a parody, even CBS fell for it: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pepsis-nonsensical-logo-redesig...

Coca Cola is the classic example for this sort of thing. However, I feel that something is off on that story. For one, the brand has moved on from the "classic" with basically no fanfare. Similarly, they have marched on from the recipe, again with no fanfare. I remember a case study once that showed that they actually did taste test the changes and that, at large, the change was the one that was liked by more people. However, the narrative got out of their control and the perception was that the old way was better. So, they cashed in on that and basically used the event as a way to re-establish their brand. Very odd story.

Would be interesting to see what the others are like. The GAP is an odd one, to me. As they, notably, don't have branding on their clothes. At least, not universally? (Do I just not see it on the ones I'm checking?)

I own quite a lot of GAP clothing—mostly trousers bought second-hand on eBay since they stopped carrying the design I liked—and none of what I have had has ever had a logo other than on the label.

As far as I know it was real, but Lemon Demon's take on it is some classic parody. https://youtu.be/fu3ETgAvQrw

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