There are few things guaranteed to generate more mixed messages from your customer base than a logo update, but smart companies proceed regardless and just accept that complaints and criticism is just part of the journey of updating or changing a company’s appearance.
The latest company to experience the slings and arrows of this outrageous affliction (well, okay, that might be a bit excessive!) is Verizon, a company that’s had the same big red check mark and red lighting ‘z’ in its logo forever. The new logo is cleaner and definitely more modern, with the all-lowercase type and red checkmark lending itself to a variety of signage uses. Here’s a comparison:
There are definitely some in the industry that are complaining about the new design but I quite like it, personally. What do you think?
Verizon also took the opportunity to unveil a new store design too, and I was able to attend the grand opening of the new “smart zone” Verizon store in Longmont, Colorado, a design that’s so new that the “tombstone” signage in the mall still has the old logo, as do the employee jerseys and ID cards. Unveiling a new logo is substantial work, staged over time when it’s a company with over 10,000 employees.
The store itself is a very modern, elegant design, as you can immediately see as you walk in:
Interestingly, the two major functional areas you see as you walk in are “fitness” and “music”: The music zone is in the photo above, with the big headphone display, while the fitness zone has more fitbit and related exercise wearables than you can shake a stick at.
Of course, there are still some necessary evils in a cellular store, notably the hassle of accessories, and no accessory is more difficult to stock and display than smartphone cases. Here’s the new Verizon “wall o’ cases”, not much of an update on design over earlier stores and definitely one that leaves me puzzled how customers are supposed to be able to see what’s on the top row:
There’s really no great way to solve this dilemma: it’s a commodity and really what we need are print-on-demand cases, but that technology isn’t quite ready for prime time.
One of the new zones that I found particularly interesting was smarthome tech:
Congrats to the Canary team for having their home security system front and center. It’s a slick device, as I explain in my video review of the Canary Home Security system. Again, though, this is the modern retail watchword of not overwhelming customers with too many choices but having a small number of products displayed in an attractive manner. Makes for a much calmer, less “warehouse store” experience.
And, finally, I even got to enjoy the ribbon cutting, the first time I’ve actually attended one:
Congrats to the entire Verizon team for the bright, modern new logo and the elegant and professional new store design. I think it’s going to serve the customer base well…
These photos are from the Longmont, Colorado Verizon Store grand opening, March 25, 2016. The store is located on Hover Blvd and you can get the street address from the photo above!