Last night while driving from the airport a Wipro friend called to tell me that Wipro had changed its Logo. My first reaction was ” Oh – I can no longer say that I was associated with the making of the Wipro Brand Identity”.
Back in 1998 I was part of the team that spent almost two years in researching and launching the Wipro Rainbow Flower with the tag Line Applying Thought – the best assignment in my career. When you work on a project like this you have deep connects with what you create and the Rainbow Flower has always been very close to my heart.
I used to get upset when I saw a billboard or office signage with the Rainbow Flower that was dirty or wrinkled and wild when people referred to it as ” The Sunflower Logo”. Alas even after 20 years leading publications like the Mint announced the new Brand Identity with this headline “Wipro unveils new logo, replacing multi-coloured sunflower “. And when I did a Google Search to find an image of the “Rainbow Flower” for this Blog this is what I got
So the correlation of the Rainbow Flower with Wipro was sadly weak. In 1998 for a conservative company like Wipro to launch the Rainbow Flower was a brave move. Many called it gay and frivolous and many linked it to the roots of Wipro at Amalner starting a Vegetable Oil company. Whatever it did – the Rainbow Flower evoked strong response – you loved it or you hated it.
And now the new brand Identity – I don’t know if its got a name like the Rainbow Flower, it clearly did not make the 1st page in TOI (The Rainbow Flower did) – and sadly once again the article on Page 23 was below a big banner Infy write up.
Wipro Press release Explaining the Logo
The new logo represents the way the company “connects the dots” for its clients: integrating deep technology and domain expertise, applying insights from across industries, and consistently delivering world-class integrated, end-to-end capabilities and services. The logo also highlights Wipro’s strong technology heritage and reflects its capabilities for the future.
The styling of the brand mark gives it a sense of fluidity, resourcefulness, optimism and a connected world.
The individual elements in the logo represent ideas, insights, technologies, industries and geographies. The expanding pattern symbolizes a boundless Wipro. The four circles represent the Wipro Values, Employees, Clients & partners, and Communities. The blue of the word mark creates a sense of reliability and authority.
Along with its new identity, Wipro has also rearticulated the Spirit of Wipro, its core values: Be passionate about clients’ success, Treat each person with respect, Be global and responsible, and Unyielding integrity in everything we do.
Designing a Brand Identity is one of the toughest jobs – it has to mean so much with so little. Changing your Brand Identity radically takes guts – its like a fresh start, at least here Wipro is the connecting glue that forms the foundation of the Brand Identity.
Yes the colourful dots give it a Digital feeling – but it also give the feeling of going round and round in circles – like the BSNL logo where we used to joke ” Dhondte Reh Jaoge” – and frankly I struggle to find even 10% of what has been articulated in the press release in the new Brand Identity.
The two colours that stand out in the dots are Blue & Red – diversity could have been better represented with more colours more vibrant – more youthful.
The expanding circle should ideally have looked to be growing and all encompassing – but it looks curtailed – this is not a spiral that is growing this is just concentric circle of dots. Are the dots connecting or are they hanging in there loosely?
The four circles represent the Wipro Values, Employees, Clients & partners, and Communities – thats a big change from the past when the Wipro Values were Innovation , Value for Money , Integrity and Human Values. I am not sure how Employees, Clients, Partners and Communities can be termed as Values – they are stakeholders – aren’t they !
The W in this Wipro looks weak and shaven. The W is for Winning – thats the power symbol of Wipro – would have been good if the font from the Rainbow Flower was retained for Wipro with its prominent W. The Rainbow Flower Wipro was more digital than this one
I wish Wipro all the best – its a great company thats a long long way away from its peak heyday glory and if this Brand Identity can help it get back some of its lost glory that would indeed be fabulous. The worry is when there is so much of headwind – Trump , Lay Off , Automation ….. would have been good to see the Brand launch along with some solid initiatives to stem the crisis and define the road ahead …. but just a plain vanilla Brand launch with no visible change seems weak.
Its like when a ship is crumbling do you paint the decks or do you go down to the gut and fix the engine. I just hope this is not an exercise in painting the decks
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