Having all these massive mergers of giant cable and entertainment conglomerates is confusing. It’s getting to be that it’s almost impossible to know who owns what anymore. In the world of journalism, it can get messy. There have been numerous reported instances of the big corporations behind the media companies holding up or even preventing stories that could result in lowered stock prices or lawsuits. But one thing that has been fairly clear is the names of these companies. Yes, it’s Time Warner, but most people don’t confuse Time Magazine with Warner Brothers. Part of the reason is that the two companies brand themselves differently.
The Comcast and NBC merger, parodied brilliantly on 30 Rock, was made more complicated recently when Comcast, who now owns 51 percent of the conglomerate, decided to, out of nowhere, drop the peacock on top of its newly redesigned logo “like a crown” as the Brand New brand identity blog aptly put it.
It’s weird enough that Comcast has decided to put its name all over networks like Comcast SportsNet. A company that is so often responsible for such piss-poor customer service should want to distance itself from every brand under its umbrella. But, taking the famous peacock logo from NBC and incorporating it into the Comcast brand is troubling for a number of reasons.
First, the peacock is a classic. The rainbow color scheme is instantaneously recognizable and a hugely successful brand mark. Adding it to another brand haphazardly won’t benefit either.
Second, the peacock logo is ultra-traditional in nature. It was designed in the ’50s and bears virtually no similarity to the hyper-modern type font Comcast chose for its new name.
Finally, the peacock logo is synonymous with numerous offshoots of NBC, but most importantly, with the Olympics. NBC has aired the Olympic Games for so long, the rings logo and peacock feel like they are part of one bigger logo.
Bottom line is it’s just stupid to dump an iconic logo onto the top of your name simply because you own a majority of the shares in the company. It makes you look amateur and like you are trying to use a classic brand to prop up your own, which is, unfortunately, probably an accurate assessment.
Drop the peacock, Comcast. You don’t need it and you look stupid using it.
This article appears in Dec 13-19, 2012.
