Walmart’s New Logo

The other night, the spouse and I were unwinding in our usual style: watching 38 commercial-free minutes of a pre-recorded “hour-long” network TV drama, him manning the remote control in order to skip through the ads. (He gets to “drive” because he’s faster on the trigger and has excellent timing.)

“Waitwaitwait. Can you rewind? I want to actually watch that commercial.”

“Which one?”

“Wal-Mart. I think they changed their logo.”

He flipped back to the ad and froze the screen. “I don’t see anything.”

“Oh, I do — that one is way different. Look… the blue is lighter, more of a ‘fresh water’ hue and not as ‘flag-blue’ as the first one… they’ve gone from all caps to mixed case which is less bold… the star-hyphen is gone from the middle of the word, which was always one of their branding standards, but now it’s all one word… the yellow flower icon says ‘look, we’re organic, we’re more human, we care about people.’”

“Huh. If you say so.”

“Yeah, they’ve definitely changed it. It might not look like much to you, but trust me: the agency that executed that landed a seven-figure pile of cash. This is a big deal.”

A couple days later, he got caught behind a Wal-Mart truck in traffic. “You know, I saw the old blue Wal-Mart logo with the star today,” he reported at home. “It is very different. The new one makes the old one look almost dictatorial, like a Soviet supply warehouse. The new one is… nicer.”

“Almost as if it were someone’s first name, huh? Like, ‘I’m going to go have a beer with my pals Steve, Tommy and Walmart.’”

He looked at me like I was daft.

“Well, you know what I mean.”

“Yes. The point is, I see it now. It’s friendlier.”

Combine this gentler, kinder logo with the clever slogan introduced last fall: “Save Money. Live Better.”… plus a new, sophisticated TV campaign that shows refined upper-middle-class consumers actually living better (rather than the prior customary scene, of shoppers in the stores’ garish, cavernous interiors — which, frankly, served only to remind one that shopping at Wal-Mart might be fiscally prudent, but it isn’t all that enjoyable)… and you’ve got a powerful set of messages, all designed to change how people think about the world’s largest company (not just the largest retailer, but largest company overall), in the wake of a few years’ bad PR. Especially as we head toward the critical holiday shopping season… and in a recessed economy — a time when discount retailers traditionally get a bigger piece of the newly-limited consumer pie.

It’s impossible to discuss Walmart (Wal-Mart?)’s market share and not mention Target, the superstore that is perceived as Walmart’s only real direct competitor. People tolerate Walmart, but people love Target. Brand loyalty is very high among Target shoppers, but it’s hard to get consumers to put their finger on why without entering a class discussion.

Ultimately, people enjoy their shopping experiences more at Target, and perceive that Target is a better business to patronize. If the psychological implications of this new logo are any indicator, Walmart is trying to meet Target head-on in those arenas.

(If you wanted to ponder Walmart’s new logo further, there is a spirited discussion on the topic over at Brand New, a blog of graphic designers discussing corporate identity work. I also borrowed the side-by-side image from them.)