11.01.2019, W&V Commentary
Mastercard is certainly one of the world's best-known brands and is certainly on a par with Nike, Apple, Starbucks, Mercedes or BMW. In terms of global presence, Mastercard has probably left most of its competitors far behind. In my opinion, such a globally known brand can certainly dare to concentrate only on the logo of the two color circles without the word mark "mastercard" as a trademark and sender identification in the future. The evolution of the logo has been carried out in a visually stringent and exemplary manner over the last few decades. The "Payment beyond cash" business model clearly represents the relevance of digitalization for Mastercard - in this respect, the use of the logo is absolutely logical, even against the background of interaction and communication channels.
As correct and exemplary as Mastercard is, one should not ignore the importance of the other design elements of brand appearances: In addition to the logo, which certainly always plays a prominent role in brand design, typography, color code, secondary design elements, layout or even architecture and much more, as well as the composition of these, are of great importance for brand recognition. Let's think of Mercedes (typography), Milka (purple), Telekom (digits), Sixt (layout) or Porsche (architecture). All of these represent visual patterns that ensure recognition with consistency and variation over the decades - recognition even without a logo.
This is important because recognition means presence, presence can be transformed into familiarity and familiarity into trust. But word marks can also be designed so pictorially that they become icons, let's think of Coca-Cola or IBM. The fact that numerous fashion brands such as Burberry or Yves Saint Laurent and numerous others are becoming more and more similar in terms of their logos because they follow the "fashion" of capital letters and sans serif fonts and are also less different in terms of other design elements is not an advantage from the point of view of visual brand management.
What conclusions can we draw from the examples for visual brand management? The brand elements of every brand presence are valuable. They must undoubtedly move with the times in order to stay up to date. But one should proceed with caution. Radical redesigns like Merck's may have their reasons - from the perspective of visual brand management, they mean going back to square one. Brands like Nürnberger Versicherungen or Kuka have been carefully developed visually in recent years without completely ignoring their visual heritage. Because very few brand managers have the financial means to quickly and broadly establish new appearances in our fast-moving times in order to generate the necessary brand presence.
Author: Christopher Wünsche
Published by W&V, Friday, January 11, 2019
Source: https://www.wuv.de/marketing/warum_mastercard_alles_richtig_macht
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