Oxfam rebrand
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- Amicus0
Say a NFP organisation sends food and medical aid to a famine hit country and they are able to help 100,000 people supported entirely by volunteers doing the fundraising.
Now, think about that same organisation paying $500,000 for some professional branding and marketing, and possibly paying fundraising consultants a %age of what they raise. 2 years later another famine hits and they are able to help 1–2 million people.
Doesn't the money paid now seem worth it? I mean they are now helping 10–20x the number of people.
That money is an investment in carrying out their mission of saving lives. Seems like it repaid itself extremely well. No For Profit business could possibly hope for that kind of ROI.
- MrT0
^ so while we're on that, 500K is apparently 0.002% their annual turnover. Do the maths but do you think all of that goes to the needy?
They aren't just a bunch of volunteers working out of a village hall, they are a very big business.
- lowimpakt0
RIZ, you need to understand context.
would the 500K (donated by the public) have been better spent preventing people starving or dying in disaster zones (which is the purpose of the organisation) or being paid to designers to do a job that only serves to make an organisation feel better about itself?
- akrok0
"everyone here so damn ignorant"
that's incl. you. ....zing!
- RIZ0
I agree with Horp - seriously people, is everyone here so damn ignorant as to think that the price tag was just to 'change the logo'?
FFS this is a forum full of practicing designers, many of whom have worked on large-scale branding projects. We all know that changing the logo represents about 1% of the entire scope of a rebrand on this scale.
So quit your fucking moaning, and be happy that at least they didn't ruin the original logo, and they've done a great job of creating a consistent look and feel across all their brand touchpoints. I see no problem here.
- fire up illustrator, choose font "din", type the name, kern it - send invoice £550 000 to clientattentionspan
- lowimpakt0
what wasn't currently working about the brand?
- Lower case letters offend non-English speakers.mikotondria3
- It had different, regionally created and managed, identities.Horp
- so it' doesn't work for the organisation rather than beneficiaries etc.?lowimpakt
- They just wanted a consistent global identity, to strengthen the brand worldwide. Unify.Horp
- Horp0
I think you've oversimplified this exchange in your mind to one that goes something along the lines of
"A company has paid over half a million quid to have their logo changed and its hardly any different than it was before".
which is a bit hysterical, as well as utterly inaccurate. The job wasn't to redesign the logo, the job was to create a consistent brand look and feel that can work in 15 countries around the world, uniting the broad charitable network under a single unifying global brand presentation guidelines.
Each Oxfam business around the world paid for a part of the work. I think its a bargain as long as Wolff Olins have delivered.
Graphic designers are cost-per-logo obsessed.
- < Bam. nailed itmarychain
- < what I saidMrT
- Sorry, didn't read past the first few posts all saying it was a rip off.Horp
- I said something like this, too.
Probably.mikotondria3 - < Thank youGucci
- Ranger0
I'm not against pro bono work but I think there is a bit of a sliding scales thing here though. Oxfam is a massive multinational organisation which competes for market share as much as any business. If it could get what it needed for free I am sure it would've but maybe the management appreciates that what it needed isn't going to be donated as free time.
Oxfam shops in the UK have definitely been going through a make over as has their branding, taking lessons from the wider retail sector. They must feel that this is what is needed to get more donations and it looks like their doing better year on year (though this may be more down to the bankers).
It's an ends justifies the means thing that all charities have been doing for years. I remember years back NSPCC convinced me to stop donating to them when they started huge TV campaigns and sending me postcards written in shaky kid handwriting claiming their parents were coming back to finish them off if I didn't donate more. Like politics if you really are appalled by it then take your time/donations to other charities.
- vaxorcist0
The irony to me is that it seems large firms get market rate for working with nonprofits, whereas smaller firms do pro bono work for non-profits. that was my experience working at a variety of firms, and the really strange thing is that the large firms can ABSORB THE COST, but the smaller firms often do it even though they can't easily absorb the cost but believe in the cause....
in my experiences: 3 large agencies, no pro-bono, 2 smaller agencies, each one did pro bono work, not just for winning awards, but because they actually believed in the cause (alzheimers research, autistm,etc)
- Charge everybody. Ask yourself why they need money to buy the food they distribute. Why doesn't that get donated gratis?mikotondria3
- Ranger0
So is the main gripe here that Oxfam went to a big company like Wolff Olins for the job and paid market rate for it?
- I bet they pay the going rate for their electricity and rent and mortgages on their properties, too.mikotondria3
- vaxorcist0
they could have better spent the £550 000 on, say, food for the starving?!?!?
If I was about to donate to oxfam, and I found out my money was being spent on logo redesigns, and branding campaigns I'd puke...
- That would be a waste of food - who's the hypocrite now ?mikotondria3
- Lack of money is never the reason people go hungry. Poverty is primarily a political weapon.mikotondria3
- Ranger0
I would like to see how Wolff Olins present ideas to clients.
- qTime0
While agree they need a consistent global brand and this will add value, I don't think they needed to go to someone like Wolff Olins.
A much smaller agency could have done this for less.
But then again I don't know who's sleeping with who on this.
- Ranger0
"Oxfam GB says the full cost will be less than 0.002 per cent of its annual turnover."
Oxfam obviously thought the price was ok and it was worth the investment. Wolf Ollins are not the outfit to go to for a cheap logo alone so you've got to think there's a lot going on behind the scenes. If the London 2012 stuff is anything to go by then they come up with a pretty impressive comprehensive system around the brand which reflects the price more than the before/after logo.
- Wolff Olins! Why can I never get that spelling correct.Ranger
- mydo0
looking at this google result, they we're in too much of a mess anyway.
https://www.google.com/search?q=…
- WeLoveNoise0
In terms of pricing i think its pretty good for what the company have got out of it. Its not just a font changed in the logo, which is what it looks like at first glance.
But charging this to a charity who have openly said even the £550 will have to be split it between our 15 divisions. Damn, you gotta feel guilty about even charging them.
I can't imagine that tiny charge would effect Wolff Olins in anyway.
- MrT0
We really shouldn't perpetuate the 'how much for a logo' idea on here of all places. This isn't about pure design (comparing a before and after) as much as it is the implementation of it consistently around the world.
If everything in all countries needed rationalising, why not incrementally refresh to the brand to make it clear? Politically within Oxfam, this would be much easier to do than, say, basing all their countries on the existing brand from the UK/US or wherever.
- make shit from lowercase to uppercase don't make it consistently around the world.akrok
- Put up with shit from stakeholders over a year who debate said decisions (and charge them for it)babaganush
- I didn't say it would, I said do that as part of the exercise when making it consistent around the world...MrT
- you're forgetting what oxfam is.set
- mydo0
I really think these decisions could be made by the management. It's not brain science.
Even though I work in branding I think anyone with a little bit of business sense knows the basics of consistency.The fact they got a research agency in annoys me. I know we only get half a story here, but i can't see how they would have helped. Oxfam branding is already strong.
Management should have said we need a consistent global VI based on our original logo and got a shit hot studio to execute it. There is probably a new studio somewhere set up by an ex-ECD who would have taken this at cost to take his company to the next level. £50k tops.- totally.akrok
- man, what's wrong with people round here - it IS brain science. It's exactly and ONLY brain science.mikotondria3