Telefónica (2010)Copied

Telefónica's logo change was small; the decision behind it was not. Cinco Días reported in November 2009 that the company had had four logos in 85 years, the first kept for 60 years, and that from 1984 every chairman had changed the image during his term except chairman Alierta, who waited nine years. The new version barely touched the type. The pistachio green letters became white, set on a darker blue background, with the stated aim of giving the name seriousness and elegance.

The reason was a new brand architecture. Global marketing director Belén Amatriaín and Luis Abril presented it: from 2010 Telefónica would be the institutional brand, used with investors, employees, corporate responsibility, institutional sponsorships and multinational clients, and would stop being used to sell products to consumers. That job went to Movistar in Spain and Latin America and O2 in the rest of Europe, whatever the product. Movistar's own logo was revised alongside it, with a slimmer M, refined colour and more solid letters, so that it could address everyone and not just mobile customers.

El País reported that the switch took effect in Spain on 3 May 2010, when all commercial services were unified under Movistar: Telefónica's ADSL became Movistar ADSL and Imagenio became Movistar Imagenio or Movistar TV. The company said the change answered the need to adapt to the current market and new customer demands, citing convergence, unified multimedia content and access to new networks. Cinco Días added that each country would pay for its own change, that the cost would be below the 75 million euros spent on Movistar's 2005 change, and that Telefónica cited Microsoft, Apple and France Télécom's use of Orange as precedents. Vivo, Terra, Alice and Atento would remain.

As design, this is almost nothing: a colour swap that makes a green and blue badge look like a bank. As strategy, it is one of the cleanest splits a European incumbent has made between corporate and commercial brands. Retiring the name from shop fronts after 85 years took nerve, and admitting that a mobile brand had more consumer pull than the parent was honest. The dour new Telefónica mark suits its narrower audience perfectly. The risk is that the institutional brand becomes invisible, which is exactly what it was designed to be.