Celebrity Makeover: Eager to Rebrand, Volkswagen Readies New Logo for September Debut

by Steph Willems

Published: August 22nd, 2019

The blue oval. The three-pointed star. The roundel. The four rings. When it comes to cars, some logos are more identifiable than others, but Volkswagen’s glistening chrome emblem ranks near the top of the easy recognition chart.

It’s classic, simple, and maybe a little dusty. Which is why VW plans to change it.

While reports arose last year of a looming, “colorful” change to the highly visible logo, we now have a better idea of what to expect when the automaker shows its new face in Frankfurt next month.

According to Autocar, the brand’s “New Volkswagen” logo aims to look as good on its vehicles as it does on those vehicles’ touchscreens, incorporating a two-dimensional design with no overlap between the “v” and the “w.” Light blue, white, and dark blue are the colors you’ll need to get used to — and so will VW employees, as the automaker plans a company-wide teardown of the old logo in 70,000 global locales following the logo’s September launch.

Blue, of course, is the industry’s go-to color for signifying the presence of electricity, and the Frankfurt Motor Show launch of the brand’s first (of many) I.D.-badged EVs would seem a natural place to kick off the blue-tinged rebranding.

Work on the logo has apparently been ongoing for the past three years. The first vehicle to carry the updated emblem won’t be an all-electric model, however — the eighth-generation Golf, due out late this year, gets that privilege. When the next-gen GTI rolls out, VW fans will be treated to a red logo.

In a release, VW stated that the logo will be “reduced to its essential elements.”

Speaking in Wolfsburg this week, Volkswagen marketing boss Jochen Sengpiehl said the brand’s current logo — last tweaked in 2010 — had “become a bit heavy, somewhat immobile, especially in today’s digital era.”

“What began as a fundamental crisis turned out to be a catalyst for the transformation of Volkswagen,” said Brandstätter. “Now it’s time to boldly move forward. We plan to be the world market leader in electric mobility by 2025, which means selling one million EVs per year by then.”

Europe will naturally be first to see the new logo go up, with China following in October. The new design appears in North America in early 2020.

[Image: Volkswagen Group]

#Badge #Branding #Logo #Makeover #ProductPlanning #Rebranding #Volkswagen #VW

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Schmitt trigger on Aug 22, 2019

Well.....those management and/or image consultants must be laughing all of their way to the bank. It is amazing how much money and effort corporations spend polishing their images, forgetting that your product's reputation actually carries it for you.

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- TheDumbGuy on Aug 22, 2019
  
  @Schmitt trigger- "It is amazing how much money and effort corporations spend polishing their images, forgetting that your product’s reputation actually carries it for you." TRUE ! These people are not like us. They think that they are always the smartest people in the room, and that their excrement smells pretty. They all go to the same schools, join the same clubs, and drink the same brands. They send their children to the same schools that they went to, and teach them the same lessons that they were taught. Their "management styles" consist of new buzzwords backstabbing, and gimmicks. They move subordinates around like chesspieces, and sometimes kick the board over. Later they are replaced by someone just like them, only younger. They will be the same whether their raison d'être is raising the stock price endlessly, or some new BS. "American Management".
  
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Jalop1991 on Aug 22, 2019

Farfrumoilin.

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