Here’s a quick email-based interview I recently conducted with Lisa Pearson, VP Global Brand and Communications at Bazaarvoice, regarding their new logo and branding.
Robert – Previous logo was company name with ripple. Who created it? I think I once read that it was Jacob Salamon. What was the meaning of the ripple? Was this basically the first and only logo?
Lisa – Indeed it was Jacob Salamon. He created it in the early days of Bazaarvoice. The ripples were intended to symbolize the rippling/radiating effect of conversation. It has been our only logo until now.
Robert – Why change the logo?
The new logo is part of an overall re-branding effort. We realized that the company has changed so much and, in order to capture all of the opportunity that exists, we must have a very clear and ownable brand identity.
We queried marketing decision makers (MDMs) at medium to large companies in the US, UK, France, and Germany. We asked them about how they were using social, their general business challenges, what was standing in the way of their success etc.
MDMs expressed a strong desire to have social integrated across Insights and Analytics, Systems and Processes, Strategies and Plans, and Systems and Outlets.
The high-leverage opportunity is to put the customer at the center of the business by integrating social across the organization – including marketing, R&D, customer service, product development, etc.
From this, we determined that we can own not only facilitating and capturing authentic conversations, but also scaling them.
Bazaarvoice enables clients to finally put the customer at the center of their business by integrating social data across their entire organization.
Bringing the Brand Strategy to Life
We used this strategy to inform the development of the brand identity. We knew that the identity also must grow with us as our business grows, be relevant for all verticals, serve as a motivator to attract top talent, and tell a very powerful story.
Robert – New logo is the letter B with a colon. What is the meaning?
Lisa – Our new brand consists of a bold new logo – “the declarative b”. We liked the informality of a lower case b. And we love the use of the colon, as a symbol for powerful things to come.
We made the decision to use green as a dominant color because there is such incredible passion around the color green within our entire company. We’re using dark navy as a mature and classic complement.
Robert – In-house creative team or agency?
Lisa – We worked with Creature on the brand identity. They are based in Seattle and did terrific work on our behalf.
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Earlier this week I posted the old and new logo along with a video of launch day at Bazaarvoice’s Austin office -> Bazaarvoice – Rebranded – the rebranding of the office was done overnight and was a surprise to most employees.