Dear Expedia: a brand is for customers, not golf shirts
A unique logo gets dumbed down by board-room egos
This morning, whilst Beg to Differ was checking our favourite blogs, looking for signs of hope in this new decade, we noticed the sad tale of a re-branding effort at do-it-yourself travel site Expedia.com (via Brand New). Seems that their distinctive, fun little logo wasn’t good enough for “the golf shirt test”…
Unfortunately, this is the deciding factor in too many corporate re-branding excercises.
What’s the “golf shirt test”?
The old Expedia logo. Too much character for a self-respecting VP of brand marketing...
That’s where an executive evaluates a logo, tag line, name, etc. in terms of how it will look on their golf shirt rather than how well it works for customers.
In this case, the old branding was kind of goofy, maybe a little clip-arty cartoonish, and yes, a bit retro (read “old-fashioned”). But it did just what it was intended to do: it conveyed a bit of the excitement and adventure of travel, while giving its target audience a strong symbol to help them find, remember, and engage with the service.
Now that might seem like a good thing. But that’s just because you’re thinking like a customer.
Instead, think for a moment like a corporate executive who wants to hit the golf circuit with the big kids from IBM, AT&T, etc., with their important-looking corporate swag. You don’t want to stand out; you want to blend in. And alas, a fun, humanizing image can make a VP feel positively bush league – or worse, like dot-commie.
I get that. I worked for Corel during the heyday of Mike Cowpland and CorelDRAW. So I had to wear ugly shirts with giant rainbow-coloured balloons in the board rooms of Samsung, HP, Compaq, Apple, among others. I understand feeling self-conscious about a dorky shirt and wishing you could just change that bloody logo. (Note: please don’t look to Corel for an example on this one).
The new logo
The new Expedia logo. Gosh that will look important on a golf shirt.
So when I saw the new Expedia branding (at right) I thought: aha! Golf shirt logic!
This new logo looks just incredibly… grown up. No more fun cartoon plane. Just a generic white jet icon against a boring blue globe. An executive with this logo on a shirt could blend right in with the leaders of airports, international aid agencies, government programs – maybe even defence contractors.
Paul Leonard, VP of brand marketing at Expedia, seems to have golf shirts on his brain. Brand New quotes him as saying:
“The whole look and feel is “less cartoonish”… We were striving for a more timeless and classic aesthetic. It’s a little less whimsical and more sophisticated.”
“Timeless.” “Classic.” “Sophisticated.” All words that are proxies for “Won’t make any impression at all.”
You could even stick this Web page on a golf shirt and no one would complain!
And one assumes Mr. Leonard also chose that very golf-shirt friendly tag line “Where you book matters.” (It’s a shame he forgot to decide why it matters – or if he did, he forgot to tell us).
One also assumes that the he also approved the generic look and feel of the new Web site – with no troublesome differentiating features to help consumers distinguish it from, well, anything else in the travel industry.
Dear executives: it’s not about you
I could go on. But brand managers, please: you need to help your corporate masters understand that branding is not about making them look good on the golf course.
It’s about three simple things:
- Helping customers find you;
- Giving them reasons to choose you; and
- Creating a relationship that will help them choose you again.
And sad to say, those three things just *might* not look pretty on a golf shirt.
But enough about me: what do you think?
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Buyer beware when booking travel plans through Expedia.com, they just took me for $1096.00. Here is how the monster sets it trap; early last winter I planned a family vacation that entailed flying to Phoenix to rent a car and drive southwest to beautiful San Carlos Mexico. In an effort to keep the travel expenses to a minimum the flight was booked months in advance. Of course as the day of departure approached news of violence in the Mexican border towns filled the media. It just didn't seem practical to put my wife and daughter in possible harm's way for a vacation, so we changed our destination to Florida. This was still weeks before our scheduled departure to Phoenix. We knew there would be expenses involved in changing our flight plans but we weren't ready for phase 1 of the Expedia.com monster trap. After hearing all about their terms of service and how there was nothing they could do because United Airlines was the real culprit, the cheapest fair they offered was FOUR TIMES the cost of booking new tickets through United Airlines. So we booked the tickets ourselves directly through United Airlines. Expedia.com explained that we now had a credit with them but it had to be used within the year. So now I was setup for phase 2 of the Expedia.com plan to steal. As the deadline for our credit with Expedia.com came closer my family again decided to travel to Florida. A major part of the decision was based on having the travel expenses somewhat mitigated by the credit with Expedia.com. What a mistake, here is how it worked out; for us to buy brand new tickets for my wife, daughter and I from Southwest Airlines directly (without Expedia involvement) cost right at $1000.00. To utilize my credit with Expedia.com I would have had to pony up an extra $2600.00. That is above the $1096.00 credit! So that's how Expedia.com stole from me. I gave them $1096.00 in good faith but because of the deteriorating climate in Mexican border towns I felt it was absolutely prudent to change our plans. The dark and monstrous side of Expedia.com sits and waits for victims who need to make a change and when found it pounces without mercy. All the solutions they offered were at FOUR TIMES the fair market value for airline tickets. I gave Expedia.com $1096.00 and received nothing in return, legal or not in my opinion that is at best a very poor way to conduct business and at worst downright theft. Beware of the Expedia.com monster, it's heart is filled with greed and it is patiently waiting to lure you into its trap.
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