Last week on my radio show, Brand With Impact!, my co-host and I were discussing all the wonderful instances of rebranding and brand refreshers from the past year. I was all prepared and ready to go when the discussion turned to the recent Weight Watcher’s rebrand unveiling from December 2012.
But even though I’d done my homework, I was about to be hit with a shocking surprise…and ON THE AIR, no less!
The Critique
Look, I’m going to be honest. In my opinion the new Weight Watchers brand is ultimately quite amateurish. There, I said it. It’s over simplistic and plain ol’ boring. It lacks meaning; it lacks personality. It just freakin’ sits there! There’s no emotion—no feeling. It’s very…blah.
Now don’t get me wrong, I get what Pentagram and Weight Watchers were trying to do here:
“As part of the program overhaul and looking forward to the next 50 years, Weight Watchers also gave its brand a new, highly modern visual system that brings to life the transformation members experience when they adopt a new lifestyle that can lead to significant weight loss.”
–from the Weight Watchers Press Release
But a chunky font with a gradient on it? Really? When I was teaching Typography to college kids back in 2000, the least creative students would come up with an answer like this—at least at first. But that’s why you go to college for design: to learn to push past the obvious meanings and dig deep to find a more interesting and original design.
My Shocking Surprise
So I was LIVE on the air when my co-host pointed out how much she disliked brands attempting the overdone look of all lowercase letters with no spaces in between words. She’s always tempted to play word search, always finding weird words not initially part of the company name.
That’s when I saw it…
There, stood an unpleasant four-letter word, stubbornly wedging itself between my brain and my agape mouth. I was live on the air, speechless and five shades of red! (I’m not going to write it here, so for the blunt version, please refer to this article.) Until I listen to the show archive, I can’t be sure how I managed to convey the ugly little word to my co-host and producer.
The Bigger Problem
We’re talking about a rather vulgar four-letter word referring to the female genitalia or to “a person regarded as stupid or obnoxious”—arguably most offensive when used to describe a woman. Now being that the Weight Watchers target market is overwhelmingly female…as my friend put it: “I logged in the other day and immediately thought: this was NOT well thought out!”
Really, it’s so awkward that it’s funny. And I’m pretty sure that’s not what they were going for. Let’s just say this: if I had designed this logo, I would’ve been mortified. (Refer back to that five shades of red I mentioned.)
Pointing Fingers
I talk about it on The Branding Spot blog all the time: it’s important to choose the right branding professional for your company. Your branding expert should be a person you connect with. A professional whose portfolio you admire, and whose references you trust.
Also important? A keen eye for detail to avoid branding disasters like this one.
But does ALL the blame lie on the designer or on the design firm? No. Designing a brand identity is a team effort and both parties should be paying great attention, as that future brand will be the future face of the company. Now it’s hard to believe that SOMEONE didn’t notice this huge error at some point in the design phase. But more than one person failed to do their job—and these people are on both the design team AND on the Weight Watchers team.
Find the Fix—soon!
Pointing fingers at this stage isn’t going to fix a thing. There’s a LOT of noise about the new logo on social media and on the major design forums and blogs. Hopefully this December 2012 launch was a soft launch, and hopefully they waited for the virtual verdict to come in before they went to print all their new promotional materials, so that they can easily fix this oversight.
They can either redesign the logo—or they can just ignore it. They could laugh it off and try to bury the talk with better things like celebrating their 50th year anniversary. (This is where a great PR person comes in.) Hey, it worked for Apple when they introduced the oddly named iPad, and it worked for Nintendo when they released the Wii.
As for me, I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to turn a blind eye to this. I’ve tried to ignore it, but it’s all I can see now when I look at the logo! It’s like that arrow in the FedEx logo that no one sees at first, but once you notice it you can never stop seeing it.
So far, I don’t see any changes to the website or to the new brand. Only time will tell which route they choose. I just hope they don’t lose more than just weight.
What do YOU think of the new Weight Watchers logo? Please leave a comment below!