Oh to be a “One-letter Owner”
In April, at the annual leadership conference for the American Marketing Association held in Chicago, the CEO announced that the association would be changing their logo. They have threatened to go away from the wishbone for many years, but this time they had rough drafts to show us. The new brand was revealed to a house full of marketers and there was a dull roar of mixed response. The new concept was based on a single letter, “M”.
If you were paying attention, you probably heard about the big event they put on called “M Planet“. Well, they want to follow that theme and essentially change the AMA into just “M”. So, in 2008 when I become president of the local chapter in Boston, I guess I will be, “MBristowe, president of MBoston”. It will be interesting to see if the letter “M” can become synonymous with “Marketing” and more specifically with the AMA.
Apparently the AMA is not alone in it’s hunt to own one of 26 letters of the alphabet as their brand. While Oprah Winfrey and Overstock were battling for the letter “O”, QVC has had it’s eye on the letter “Q”.
In fact, on October 1st, QVC will reveal another step in their push for a new brand of their own. On a huge New York bilboard, QVC will continue staking their claim on the letter “Q”. The first set of billboards they put out in early September, in NY, Philly and LA, had the catchphrase, “iQdoU?“. Most people had no idea what it meant, but changing a household name… or acronym in their case into a single letter isn’t the easiest thing to do I suppose.
Take a look at a video of the “QVC” billboard:
This new billboard reveals the answer to those who were wondering what it all means:
qvc
iqdou
branding
marketing
September 25th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Cool move for QVC. I’m not sure if they will own “Q” like they are hoping.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:43 am
A name and logo/branding change can be difficult for an established household name. The name change didn’t really work for “the artist formally known as prince”. Perhaps if he had changed his name to “P”, he could have owned that letter and be in line between Oprah’s magazine and the new QVC.
Another important letter I did not mention earlier is the letter “i”, which Apple has been pretty successful in claiming for themselves. iMac, iBook, iPod, iTunes, iMail, iChat, iCal, iLife and iPhone. Hmmm.
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