Michelin is releasing two new logos featuring its iconic Bibendum mascot to replace its old logo. The goal: a new visual identity that waves to the past but points to the future, and encompasses its corporate brand and its mobility-focused, customer-facing brand experience.
On June 13th, the French tire and travel-information brand unveiled a refreshed Bibendum or “Michelin Man” at its annual sustainable mobility conference, Movin’ On, which was held in Montreal and unveiled a visionary new concept tire—a wheel with no air that can communicate with the car and be ‘replenished’ by a 3D printer.
In step with its vision of the future (and present), by the end of this year Michelin’s brand identity will have two iterations: the one at top, to be used as its corporate or group brand identity; and another that will embody the Michelin Experience, its sales proposition of tires, solutions and customer-facing services, and have the ability to flex for social media and other contemporary marketing platforms.
The new trademark, called “Bib in the World” marks the latest evolution of the character, which will be expressed in a new marketing campaign with the tagline, “Michelin takes action.”
The updated Bibendum “is fully situated in the contemporary world,” Michelin stated a press kit. One way the logo is evolving is to move from its 17-year flirtation with 3D to a slimmer “return to two dimensions, which is more coherent with digital media and easier to use,” in addition to returning to an outline and a wordmark.
“Bibendum 2017 conserves his legendary warmth while becoming lighter,” Michelin explains. “Svelte and active, the guardian angel of motorists appears to be on the move” and “shows that Michelin’s purpose remains the same: a company on the move that is proud of its past, living in the present and focused on the future.”
For Michelin, that future increasingly is in underscoring its relevance for the coming era of self-driving, both by improving and demonstrating a reduced environmental footprint due to the suitability and durability of its tires, as well as using its travel-advice business to help people optimize their “mobility experiences” through gourmet dining, tourism and “intinerary selection.”
More details from the press kit:
A new Michelin Man and a new visual identity
The deployment of new activities and the multi-brand strategy promoted by the Group re ect a desire to expand Michelin’s mission by offering every solution that enhances mobility, beyond our core activity, which is to produce tires.
For over 120 years, the Michelin Man has faithfully supported the Group’s communication. Naturally, he has evolved with his time, abandoning his monocle and his cigar and donning a 3D suit in the 2000s. He continues to encourage people to travel, embodying what Michelin intends to be: an everyday partner that us familiar, considerate and accessible.
Michelin ensures that Bibendum, the Michelin Man,
is fully situated in the contemporary world. His purpose it to guide customers and to serve them. Because our ways of communicating with customers have been transformed and enriched through the effect of digital channels, the graphic design of the Michelin Man favors a return to two dimensions, which is more coherent with digital media and easier to use.
Not as heavy to download and easier to manipulate, Bibendum 2017 conserves his legendary warmth while becoming lighter. Svelte and active, the guardian angel of motorists appears to be on the move. This new brand identity, which is extended both to logos and to advertising campaigns, is an evolution rather than a revolution. It enables us to take advantage of our current identity while ensuring a smooth transition from the old to the new. It shows that Michelin’s purpose remains the same: a company on the move this is proud of its past, living in the present and focused on the future.
From a single logo to two logos
By the end of 2017, the change in this brand identity will also involve the use of two logos, versus one at present. One will be used for the Group brand and the other for the Michelin trademark. The Group brand logo is revealed to you today at Movin’On and enables us to give a special visibility to the event, its strategy and its basic mission, which is sustainable mobility. The choice of the Michelin Man kindly showing the way is fully in line with the Group’s strategic positioning.
The trademark logo will embody the Michelin brand’s sales proposition of tires, services, solutions and the Michelin Experience. It will be unveiled in a few weeks.
From now on, the consumer and the customer will no longer enter Michelin’s world. Rather, Michelin will become part of their day-to-day experience. Its role is to accompany, facilitate, and protect them at all instants of life. That’s the meaning of this new world of the trademark, called “Bib in the World”, which is expressed in a new advertising campaign on the theme of “Michelin takes action.” Closer, more discrete, listening more closely and more empathetic, the Michelin Man is now part and parcel of day-to- day living, promoting the Group’s values and giving a positive note to the stories of mobility experienced by each of our customers.
“Not only has Bibendum’s design evolved into a person more in tune with his times, closer and more dynamic; in addition he has become more present, with a wink at our daily lives, faithful to his role as a facilitator, and this in a more symbolic, more graphic way that is totally adapted to our current modes of engagement such as social networks.”
—CLAIRE DORLAND CLAUZEL,
Member of the Group Executive Committee, Director of Sustainable Development, Brands and External Relation
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