YAHOO! New Logo
Yahoo! Has unveiled its first major logo change in 18 years. Yahoo logo has been mostly the same since 1995, but the last logo update was 2009 (18 years ago). Yahoo spent the month of August releasing teaser designs one a day, which was a setup for a more exciting swerve on day 30. This new change is trying to breathe new life into the brand.
The new logo retains many of its predecessor’s qualities, but unless you have studied design it’s hard to differentiate the new logo with the old one. The logo retains the traditional elements, the color remains purple, though a bit darker, the letters capitalized and rounding off with the signature exclamation mark. In some versions the exclamation dances around. Overall the look is sleek, cleaner with a new sans-serif typeface. See the previous logo below.
The unveiling generated a lot of an unfavorable buzz on social media platforms. Most of them were in favor of the old logo and widely viewed the new logo as a let down. More than three-quarters of Internet users prefer Yahoo’s old logo to the new logo, according to a survey of more than 400 online respondents Thursday from Survata, a market research group. See below.
My $0.02
Most people hate change, I would have guessed even before the release that consumers would vote for the old logo. This new logo is close to the old one, and I may not be a designer but that is a good outcome for Yahoo and its customers because they haven’t made a major change. Consumers can still identify with the color purple as well as the exclamation mark, and these two are the most important symbols for Yahoo.
In most recent years, companies like Gap, J.C. Penney, MasterCard, Microsoft and Tropicana have experienced disastrous logo changes. Yahoo will not experience a similar fate because it has clearly communicated through the change with the 30-day rollout. Most importantly Yahoo is not a physical product that consumers need to locate in stores. I doubt somebody will quit using Yahoo because the logo is so “a decade ago”.
The new logo shows a more serious look, signaling to consumers, investors, others in the tech world and employees that change is occurring. The 30-day rollout was successful in creating a buzz about Yahoo and sharing these variations prepared consumers for the change.
Even though this new logo generated a lot internet hate but if you think about it, a bad Yahoo logo made everyone talk about it. It was a successful campaign to get the media and consumers stay afloat for 30 days. On the whole, people are paying attention to Yahoo again. I believe in no time consumers will get used to the new logo. By the way, I like the new Yahoo fantasy football (soccer) layout. I Play for fun with people around the globe.
New Yahoo logo live stream.
The logo concept..
Marissa Mayer’s First Year Review
If you judge CEO’s by their company’s share price then Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has turned around Yahoo fortunes. When she joined Yahoo last year, the share price was around $15 and it has risen 74.4 percent to land at $27.24. To date, Mayer is responsible for 17 out of the 83 mergers and acquisitions in Yahoo’s history, or more than 20 percent.
She made headlines when the company banned employees from working from home. Mayer, who formerly worked at Google, has made a host of changes at Yahoo. Despite generating profits every quarter since she joined Yahoo, revenue has remained about static and Yahoo hasn’t convinced advertisers to spend more money to reach users. In return, advertisers don’t want what Yahoo is selling.
In my opinion, Yahoo looks fresh and hungry again, one report mentioned that morale within the company has improved. More people are applying to work at Yahoo and employees are sticking around. I give Marissa Mayer credit for trying something new. However, Yahoo still lags behind Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft when it comes to innovation.
I think it will take another year for her work behind the scenes to finally pay off. Yahoo business saw continued stability, improved stock performance, high-profile acquisitions (Tumblr), the company launched more products than ever before, revamped applications, introduced a lot of new product. She certainly has improved the company, but not the most important part of it all “Revenue”
According to YouGov BrandIndex, a poll that measures consumer perception of brands, Yahoo’s score has dropped since Mayer joined as a CEO last year. The company brand is still losing ground with consumers. But Yahoo still brings hundreds of millions of unique visitors every month.
Yahoo! has tremendous brand equity despite its failures. Marissa Mayer has brought back the winning attitude that Yahoo lacked for years. She has worked at Google for 13 years, so she is quite familiar with Yahoo’s competition. In 2012, she number 14 on the list of America’s most powerful businesswomen by Fortune magazine. If anyone can save Yahoos brand, it’s probably Marissa Mayer.
Marissa Mayer is now the youngest CEO of Fortune 500 company. This gives Yahoo an edge. Much of Mayer’s focus in her first year was resolving legacy issues, including cutting costs, and changing the company’s focus and culture. Clearly, these are not easy changes to make.
Yahoo! isn’t the only company that saw declines in their brand value, but they have taken major steps reviving their brand. Yahoo needs to focus more in the mobile space. I bet Marissa Mayer can still save Yahoo and bring it back into what it once was. It might take some time but there is definitely a bright future.
The Marketing Explorer 