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Persistence and branding that wins

Posted Nov 8th, 2009 at 8:29 AM and seen
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What does it take to dominate branding? Persistence, according to an insightful post on Designer Daily. As an example, check out this stimulating comparison between Pepsi and Coca-Cola:

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Both soda brands have the fortune of long and celebrated histories, but the design proves an interesting point. In the case of Coke, images and products become "classic" (in the various positive senses of the word) when we allow them to be. That is, longevity and model leadership occurs when we trust the brand enough to endure and then persist in it.

The post throws out one more observation that I like: eliminate time sensitive elements from your brand. I like it because it allows your branding to last the ages but also because it pushes some provocative questions. Is either your product or message something that engages essential humanness? Could your brand transcend time? The answer is probably not the same for all successful businesses.

More branding insights.

 Noelle Chun

Comments (12)

Nov 08, 2009
Sustainable Energy Man said...
Follow Sustainablehero on twitter. Thats my brand!
Nov 08, 2009
Marty Vanags said...
This is amazing. I didn't realize that Coca-Cola had never changed their logo. It shows how we should never mess with a good thing. I like this post.
Nov 08, 2009
Jay said...
This is making it simple to prove a point! wrong one at that. so where does Coke, Classic Coke, diet coke fit in. A classic case of tampering with data to support a spurious argument.
Nov 08, 2009
Paul S said...
This made the Internet rounds in June of 2009. It was debunked. The Coke logo has changed quite a bit over time.
http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/coca-cola_vs_pepsi_revised_edition.php
Nov 08, 2009
Muhammad Asif said...
@Jay: The comparison here is between parent brands. What you mentioned are variant logos. Nothing to do with this post.

@Paul: The comparison is to show the 'extent' of consistency in overall feel of the Coca Cola logo and the 'vastness' of change in the Pepsi logo. The argument here holds good.

Nov 08, 2009
seamuswalsh said...
Be fair, what about New Coke?
Nov 08, 2009
Paul S. said...
@ Muhammad. I would argue that the 11 changes to the Coke logo to be just as significant as the Pepsi changes.
Nov 08, 2009
Napoleon liked this post.
Nov 09, 2009
Jay Jaboneta said...
This is such a great post! Thanks Guy for sharing.
Nov 09, 2009
Joel Price said...
Coca-Cola logo has changed over years as Paul noted. I can think of the COKE logo that was used in the 80's. IMO Pepsi should be commended for great logos over the years, like most things in life however... it comes down to personal taste. :-)
Nov 09, 2009
Michael Margolies said...
Coke has changed it's logo many times. This is a contrived example to make a branding point. Just looking for 5 minutes on Google I could find seven current Coke logos not including the many versions of the iconic calligraphy. They just happen to continue to use a modification of the original design in a strategically nostalgic way. Pepsi does this too during specific seasons. Don't just accept everything you read online and assume it's correct without doing your own homework.
Nov 10, 2009
Eldin Beganovic liked this post.

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