What is it with Madison Avenue and its compulsion to erode tradition, identity and recognition for brands in favor of milquetoast and meaningless?
We just went through this neutering and sanitization of Cracker Barrel in recent months, which as everyone knows elicited massive backlash, which then pressured corporate leaders to restore the country gentleman to the logo, stop turning its dining rooms into medical waiting rooms, and fix its biscuits and sides.
Now here comes PepsiCo with its own image and logo change (see above). As you can see, the company is no longer “PEPSICO” or “PepsiCo,” but instead feebly presents as “pepsico” in feminized font. A useless white lowercase “p” is surrounded by what is supposed to be recognized by the average consumer as:
- “Food/Grains” — To reference its potato chips, Cheetos and oatmeal (Quaker) offerings
- “Drinks/Water” — Sodas, Aquafina, Gatorade etc.
- “Smiles” — because of the advertising agency’s lack of imagination
- “Winning with pep+” — because your woke sustainability branding is also feminized and should never be uppercase
- The all-lowercase “pepsico” in cursive is such because it presents as “approachable” and “inclusive.” Nothing says racist and off-putting like normal grammar and uppercase letters where appropriate.
The company explains the changes here. This is what the corporate logos have been over the years:
PepsiCo’s logo history
Yes, “PepsiCo” is the parent company and it’s not “Pepsi” the soda brand, but still, the name and the color-scheme of the past have been bold and readily identifiable. Here’s what the soda logos have looked like in the past:
Pepsi cola logos over the years
Red. White. Blue. Sometimes “Pepsi” in black font. Sometimes all-uppercase, sometimes not. But never illiterate and all-lowercase, like the woke ad execs out of marketing school produce in vomit-inducing faint colors that convey nothing meaningful and confident. If a palette could be trans-inclusive, PepsiCo’s (excuse me, “pepsico’s”) new logo would be it.
Considering the company‘s recent history and its leadership, none of this should surprise anyone, despite what appeared to be progress last year.
