The American Red Cross has rolled out a refinement to their logo, designed by Turner Duckworth. What they should have done is refine their brand architecture.
Making the logo look like a pin is a cute (if contrived) idea, and 3D effects are a little 2005 for us. We’ll leave more comprehensive critiques to the commenters at Brand New, but this refinement of the identity seems like a big lost opportunity to us.
Who, besides its employees, calls the American Red Cross anything but the Red Cross? Sure, it’s a distinct organization, as are the British Red Cross, la Cruz Roja Española and la croix-rouge française. But they’re all part of one incredibly powerful global brand, and they should identify themselves that way.
Think it can’t be done? Look at Deloitte, or Ernst & Young.
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Deloitte and E&Y are powerful, unified global brands, yet each organization is made up of dozens of separate member companies. Each of the members has a distinct legal name, but uses the global brand name for its identity. Both organizations have central groups that coordinate global strategy, much like the IFRC in the case of the Red Cross organizations.
Somewhere in the fine print of the Geneva Conventions that give the IFRC its charter we’re sure there are rules about how affiliates should be named. It’s time to change them. Or, faster yet, ignore them.
We’re not suggesting all of the IFRC’s affiliated groups use the English words ‘Red Cross’ for their identities. Just that they drop the national modifiers, align their brands with public perceptions and truly embrace the purpose for which they exist: to prevent and alleviate suffering everywhere. The Red Crescent (in 33 Islamic States) and the Red Crystal (in Israel) groups should be parallel brands in their respective territories, again without national modifiers.
And it appears that at some point, someone had the same idea. Notice that the URLs for the affiliates are not americanredcross.org, but simply redcross.org; not cruzrojaespanola.com but cruzroja.es.
So - did the Red Cross get it wrong? Is it not more important to express its worldwide vision than its regional segmentation?
By Scott Lerman
02 MAR 2012, 0:45 GMT
There’s not really anything to debate here. The “update” is a mistake.The symbol should (and likely will) revert to its iconic base as the cute-as-a-button illustration is more campaign than core identity. And Paul is right about the name. “Red Cross” is the communicative name around the world and should be used with the, red cross! Geographic nomenclature is better moved to secondary use.
Seth Spiro, the Red Cross’ National Brand Manager penned an earnest note on Brand New outlining the logic of the change. His heart is in the right place, but he simply does not have the experience or training to get this right. Turner Duckworth should have provided better counsel.
By Dan Dimmock
28 MAR 2012, 11:17 GMT
Ahha, enter Middle East based consultant with charity brand experience.
Understanding the breadth of both internal and external situation factors is even more of a must when working with not-for-profit, humanitarian and charity sector organisations — where conviction and commitment, pride and emotion is inherently strong. You can probably multiply this by ‘n’ when that organisation carries with it an international aid badge.
There is no denying the history, value and meaning the ‘red cross’ carries, throughout the world, is immense but, so are potential connotations. Scott, choosing to use the word ’symbol’ to describe it, was spot on. However, it is very important to note, the Red Cross is not the Red Cross everywhere. Actually, the IFRC stands for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Now we can add religion, cultural sensitivity and even political struggle to the mix. Complicated, eh?!
Now, one could argue, that the ‘diversity of the portfolio’ and ‘decentralised operations’ might suggest a more IFRC endorsement strategy. Which, based on quick online research, appears to be the IFRC’s intention. However, even this appears to have met reluctance. For I only found one occurrence, among Red Cross branches, where a visual IFRC endorsement was applied.
So, perhaps the skills needed to align all IFRC branches are more in line with those associated with the role of General-Secretary of the UN.
Quick overview:
Please note: For illustrative purposes only. Not all IFRC branches are included in this diagram.
On a side note, I was sorry to see that the link to the new brand guidelines has been taken down. This is a shame.