Looks like Wal-Mart Walmart kinda screwed the pooch on their new logo unveil. Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal beat Walmart’s PR team to releasing the news of a logo/brand redesign. The Journal was tipped off by the Memphis and Shelby County of Development who had received documents from Walmart with the intention of opening a prototype store there. An artists rendering on those documents showed a new sign over the facade of the proposed store.
Walmart released a ‘d’oh we effed up’ press release siting in some rather vague language that simply offers up:
But what really matters is what happens out there in the stores. This update to the logo is simply a reflection of the refresh taking place inside our stores and our renewed sense of purpose to help people save money so they can live better.
Ummm.
Brent sent this intial article over from underconsideration.com, with the comment, “Read the first two comments”. All I can say is…effing brilliant. Walmart probably paid Lippincott a small fortune to research, test, design, redesign, retest, and finally approve this new design. Did NO ONE in the test group or even the design staff take a good look at this logo and think “WTF?” Ok, sphincter might be a bit of a reach, but the minute Dante mentions it, you look at that logo again and think…ya know…he’s kinda right.
So what is the message that Walmart is trying to convey here? As underconsideration mentions, the starburst is a bit more akin to a start up and/or a telecommunications company. I personally don’t make any correlation of any kind between Walmart and the sun, sunflowers, stars, or starbursts.
However, when someone mentions, “Oy…that’s looks like a sphincter!” my mind immediatly jumps to the conclusion, “Walmart – Screwing customers and employees in the sphincter since 1962″. Or perhaps, “Hello welcome to Walmart. I’m taking it up the @$$ from these f#(&ers ’cause there ain’t nothin’ better in town”.
Some other top comments on underconsideration’s article include:
- I was hoping when I read this that it was april fools day…guess not disappointing Lippincott (if it is the case, say it aint so).
- OMG, IT’S SO F-ING HUGE!!! What the hell is up with that giant asterisk?
- It’s like a ring of golden cannons, all aimed at small-town America. The blue, of course, represents the depression Wal-Mart employees cannot afford to medicate.
- People seem hung up on the yellow mark. It is ugly, but my suspicion is that it was born of Target-envy.
- It would appear that Walmart has discovered their inner Target. That said, I’d rather be the brand with the bulls-eye and not the butt hole.
Underconsideration.com also provided an interesting graphic of the development of the Walmart logo.
For the whole story, go give ‘em a visit.
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Sam Wally and the whole clan be damned. Walmart, Wal-Mart, *, whatever.
The organization is STILL the evil empire. They are making changes, granted, but they have a long way to go before they can safely claim to be in line with democratic values.
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I worked at a company in California for ten years called Pacific Bell (one of the 7 phone companies formed when the original AT&T was split up in the 80′s).
Pac Bell’s logo was often called out as sphincter-like in appearance. With the PacBell logo they were intending to make the Telesis star look like a er.. a receptable you could plug in to for all your communications needs (an image that also played on the star on the telephone keypad). At least they got their telecommunications and sexual metaphors lined up. On second thought…
Perhaps WalMart are simply letting us know that *they* know they’re fucking us up the a**!
Thanks for the post, something to ponder on
Bigbluebottles is a big blue idiot. Bet your the first one in line to buy discount items at Walmart. They have saved us thousands of dollars over the years.
I was just passing through an came across this rather poor architectural rendering of Wal-mart’s new signage. You would think that using high end marketing material would better serve their cause.
I love looking back over time and seeing how alrge companies have changed their logos. particularly those that have changed their business or industry over that time like Nokia etc.
sorry that was LARGE companies…