Türk TelekomCopied

Türk Telekom spent years running three consumer brands: Avea for mobile, TTNET for internet and Türk Telekom for fixed lines and corporate services. Akşam reported that the group began merging them in 2014, and on 26 January 2016, at a meeting in Antalya hosted by chief executive Rami Aslan, Anadolu Agency reported that all three were brought under the single Türk Telekom brand, covering mobile, internet, home phone, TV and business services.

Aslan described a new era crowned by a new logo representing innovation, dynamism, customer focus and diversity. Akşam, which asked about the meaning of the colours, was told that green stands for a lively, energetic and agile structure, orange and red for courage and imagination, and the bright blue long associated with Türk Telekom for reliability and a deep rooted history. The bold characters and bright colours were said to symbolise the coming together of three brands, unity and harmony. The launch slogan translated roughly as a brand new strength is born from unity.

The logo was only part of the pitch. Aslan used the event to argue that the company's 206,000 kilometre fibre network would feed the 4.5G sites due to go live in April, making it the leader of 4.5G and future mobile technologies, and pointed to its invitation to an international 5G consortium as the only company from Turkey. He also promised UEFA Champions League and Europa League matches in 4K. Anadolu reported that from the evening of 26 January stores, head office buildings, signage, vehicles and staff uniforms across the country would be dressed in the new logo, with the website switching too.

Consolidating three brands into one is plainly sensible; Avea and TTNET were artefacts of a time when fixed and mobile were separate businesses. The mosaic is more debatable. Akşam noted that the logo was much talked about, and it is easy to see why: assigning a virtue to each colour is the oldest trick in corporate design, and the result reads as busy rather than unified. It does mark a clear break from the stiff blue square, and the colours give a long established incumbent a younger face. But a logo that has to be decoded colour by colour is working too hard.