MTNCopied

MTN, founded in 1994 and recognised as Africa's most valuable brand, had last overhauled its identity in 2004, when it took ownership of the colour yellow. By 2022 it operated in 18 or 19 markets across Africa and the Middle East and was repositioning under a strategy called Ambition 2025, leading digital solutions for Africa's progress, moving from network provider to technology company through fintech and digital platforms.

Group marketing executive Bernice Samuels said MTN was born into an analogue era while its customers now lived in social and digital space, and that it now competed not just with the telco down the road but with the world's biggest digital brands. Group chief executive Ralph Mupita said the brand showed an enhanced focus on young people.

The new logo, seen from 16 February 2022, forgoes the italics, the red underline and the solid oval of the old mark, ThisDay reported. What remains is a minimalist outline oval with the letters MTN inside, in black or yellow on sunshine yellow or white. The positioning starts with a question, 'What are we doing today?', while the tagline 'Everywhere you go' became a creative element. The rollout began in digital media before a TV campaign; in Lagos, MTN Nigeria held a launch event.

TBWA South Africa led the work, assembling Yellowwood, Grid, TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris and DDB with affiliates across Africa. TBWA's group chief executive, Luca Gallarelli, anticipated the reaction that the logo could have been made in half an hour in Microsoft Word, and admitted critics were not entirely wrong, arguing that reductive thinking was the point.

MTN's own statement recalled that this was only the second brand overhaul since the group was founded in 1994, and that the 2004 change gave it ownership of the colour yellow and helped make it, by its account, the most valuable brand in Africa. Chief executive Ralph Mupita said the evolution showed an enhanced focus on the youth, central to Africa's potential. A company that already owns a colour should touch it as little as possible, and keeping the yellow while modernising everything around it is the correct trade.

He was right. Removing the italics and the red line makes the mark calmer and more legible at every size, and the yellow carries the brand anyway. It is plain, but plain is what a ubiquitous utility should be.