The New Aol.

In December, AOL ended its relationship with Time Warner and became a publicly held company, and with that, came the launch of its new brand – identity and all! Wolff Olins was the mastermind consulting on this re-branding initiative!

I was interested to see the response to the re-branding work:

“What happened to branding having meaning and actually having set out rules. These are just as bad as the little logos- meaningless, and just look like someone playing around. Very pretty, but why not choose one 'look' and run with that, rather than doing loads and being vague?”

“This new Aol thing seems to have no idea where it is going, and seems to be meaningless dicking around in the hope to make something pretty. If each logo/motion graphic was assigned to a certain element [can't give any examples, as I have no idea what Aol actually do anymore....kind of proves my point] then it might make a modicum of sense”

“I quite like them. However as a launch campaign I'm not the sure that the average Joe would get it, they are a bit too designery and lack any kind of emotion to connect to the average consumer. For a company to hit back I don't think this has done the job.”

Quotes from the comments section of www.creativereview.co.uk

Reading these comments intrigued me. Like the title of my blog entails – a brand is more than a logo! It’s the actions a brand takes that define who it is and creates meaning. It is through an inspiring brand purpose where these actions are born. So judging a brand after only a few days/weeks/months based on its logo seems pre-mature!

AOL’s new focus, content, seems like a good move in remaining relevant.

AOL used to focus on access – enabling people to get online (America Online) to access content (the end user benefit). So, rather than focusing on the means to get to the destination, AOL is focusing on the destination – Content!

In the past, AOL used to charge for content. This was in a time when online content wasn’t as readily available as it is today. But, now, content is free and more accessible that ever before – thanks Google! It no longer makes sense to charge for content – people are too used to getting it for free.

So what’s the value AOL can provide today?

Rather than giving people what they already have – easily accessible content – AOL has begun to focus its energy on providing the best content. They want to make online content better. To me, this is a great purpose to have and a meaningful promise to deliver!

I feel the essence of AOL still exists, but the new direction makes an already known brand more relevant to today’s online environment and its users!

But, this is only the beginning. The direction is good and the first steps forward, in hiring freelance journalists among other extraordinary creative talent to develop “world-class content”, is on brand. We will know better if this re-brand really paid off by whether AOL continues to deliver on its promise through new actions/innovations/etc.

As for the logo, I, personally, really like it! I feel as though it makes people look past a logo to see what the brand is actually doing. And as the logo implies, it’s what’s behind the logo that really matters!