Branding Fail: Pepsi’s New Look

October 24, 2008 in Design,Food,LOL with 8 Comments

Dear Blog,  I cannot understand why it was necessary to

  1. Ruin a perfectly good logo, one of the most popular identities in the world for nearly a century.
  2. Slap a half-hearted attempt at a label onto a bottle that mildly resembles a phallic object.
  3. Create a separate, insignificantly different logo, for each product type. (seriously?)

Can someone in Pepsi Corporate please explain what posessed them to fail this hard?  And what’s the deal with companies trying to be more “contemporary” when their logos have been treasured for decades?

Here’s hoping we find some answers.

Signed,

A Perpetually Perturbed Designer

UPDATE: For more images of this re-branding, head on over to BRAND NEW. (They have photos of the new cans..ugh)

About Tim Quirino: Tim started Geekadelphia with Eric Smith in 2007 as a result of walking around in stormtrooper armor. He's an Interactive Designer @ P'unk Ave in South Philly, where he designs websites (like this one!).

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8 Responses to “Branding Fail: Pepsi’s New Look”

  1. Jeff October 24, 2008 at 12:42 pm #

    Mtn Dew is srz bzns

  2. BRiAN October 24, 2008 at 1:02 pm #

    i feel like it looks like a college Graphic Design/Industrial Design concept project that would never make it into actual production…yet it’s real.

    i miss crystal pepsi.

  3. JULIE October 24, 2008 at 1:27 pm #

    Hey Tim

    “Can someone in Pepsi Corporate please explain what posessed them to fail this hard?”

    I’m pretty sure you read my mind on that one.
    CoMAD 4eva

  4. Joe October 24, 2008 at 2:03 pm #

    Don’t they have to run these things by customers? I want to meet the asshole that actually said “Yeah, dude, that looks awesome!

  5. Dustin October 24, 2008 at 4:18 pm #

    Definitely didn’t see this coming.

  6. Drew October 26, 2008 at 10:45 am #

    Is it just me, or does this look like the “future” design style for retail products in every science fiction movie made in the 1980s?

    I’m trying to imagine a commercial in which some new age jock rolls up to the high school football game in one of these feminine-looking new “muscle” cars sucking on a phallic cola bottle with a label that looks like it’s designed to sell tampons…I just can’t stop laughing.

  7. Kelly October 26, 2008 at 6:49 pm #

    Not gonna lie, from a design standpoint, I think they’re kinda rad. From a branding standpoint, they kind of suck.

  8. Moira October 29, 2008 at 5:49 pm #

    I agree with BRiAN, it reminds of something I would have done when I first started doing graphic design and my lecturer would be like yeah… no.

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