Pandora (2013)Copied

Apple launched iTunes Radio alongside iOS 7 on 18 September 2013, a direct threat to Pandora. Pandora had just dropped its 40-hour monthly listening limit, It answered Apple on the same day with version 5.0 of its iOS apps and a refreshed brand.

Chief marketing officer Simon Fleming-Wood described 'refinements' to the logo, app icon and visual design, meant to honour the company's past, by then some 14 years, while looking to the future with a bolder, more modern identity. AppleInsider noted that the textures and gradients of earlier versions were gone, replaced by a minimalist look that carried into the redesigned logo, in step with iOS 7's flat aesthetic; Digital Trends called the new wordmark 'lighter'. The visual language, which Pandora simply called 'lights', was meant to evoke the interplay of lights at a live show and the flow of music from artists to listeners. A brand film and the slogan 'Let there be music' framed the mission as building a better musical future for artists and listeners.

On iPhone, the update offered little beyond the new logo. On iPad it was a new app, with richer artist pages, lyrics, profiles, a music feed and social sharing. Fleming-Wood said the website and Android apps would follow.

Not everyone was charmed. Music Technology Policy, a blog critical of Pandora's royalty rates, mocked the 'Old Testament' slogan, noting that it launched in the same week as a $450 million share sale.

PCMag judged the changes subtle: a chunkier logo and more pronounced blurred lights on start up, arriving first on iOS with Android and the website to follow. The timing mattered. Pandora was battling ASCAP over royalty rates and trying to grow subscriptions, and the refresh landed alongside new features such as listener profiles and sharing to Facebook and Twitter, all just ahead of the iTunes Radio launch. A chunkier mark was a sensible defensive move; under competitive pressure, a familiar brand should speak louder rather than change its voice.

The redesign itself was competent and timely: the old textures and gradients would have looked ancient on iOS 7. But a thinner wordmark is not a strategy, and against Apple and Spotify, Pandora needed more than a refresh.