Branding: If it ain’t broken, why fix it?

Every advertising agency executive is a branding expert. And every time a company switches agencies, the newbies want to refresh the brand.

It is as if every creative person feels compelled to sign their name across a brand. But, in some cases, the refreshed brand is more turkey than an eagle.

WATCH: ‘R33m for this ad?’ Mzansi reacts to ‘Come to SA’ with Trevor Noah … and those rhinos

If it ain’t broken, then, why fix it? Case in point: HTH, the pool care chlorine brand. It keeps the water clean. The logo, always simple, easily recognisable. You know when you buy it what you are getting, what it looks like on shelf and where to find it.

And thank goodness there is still some old stock around, because the pool product now looks completely different.

While its location in the supermarket has not changed, I didn’t recognise it and didn’t buy it, because it looked suspiciously like a fake.

HTH posted this on Facebook when it changed the brand: “Our bold new look goes deeper than just a rebrand. Our safety buoy logo is for the pool owners and swimmers, our lifeguards and athletes, the people who dip their toes in the shallow end and the ones who are the first to bomb-drop in the deep.

“It is for the woman taking her first swimming lesson and the little boy wading out into the deep end for the first time.

“It is for the sunbathers and the lilo-queens, the backstroke champions and the doggypaddlers, too.

ALSO READ: Trevor Noah launches first episode of ‘What Now’ with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson

“Why make the change? Well, the world has changed. We all want cleaner living and to live more sustainably. It is about clearer water, clearer futures and, above all: accessibility to clean, safe waters for you and your fam. Come with us on our journey. After all, the future looks clear with HTH.”

Try as I might, I could not find any product innovation information that makes our future clearer… nor about how a new HTH logo influences my desire for cleaner living, or how it would even resonate with me, as a consumer, beyond keeping the water in my pool clean.

Eskom is reportedly developing a new logo. I assume it would just be a blob because what else is there to say visually?

Just like All Gold Tomato Sauce, which redid its packaging labels, I would rather Eskom save the cash and to keep the lights on, or save me a few bob at the checkout.

ALSO READ: Get verified! On WhatsApp?

FNB’s brand refresh or logo redo, even months after introducing the crass overhaul to the public, remains an eyesore.

Absa’s rebrand and refreshed logo – almost six years old now – took the bank out of the ’80s, but inventing the word Africanacity sucked the breath out of me.

It is still a spellcheck error on Word. It is not believable and never made it to the dictionary for very good reason.

Ayoba, Yebo Gogo and other authentic phrases from MTN and Vodacom made it into the national consciousness, because they were real.

Africanacity was too sterile to enter mainstream culture. No-one thought Elon Musk would be able to kill a brand. Prince could not do it when he decided to become “symbol” …. but renaming Twitter to X is equally as far removed from form and function.

ALSO READ: Beware, South Africa: WhatsApp scams you need to avoid

X is meaningless because Twitter was nestled in the collective consciousness. Like HTH used to be.

There is nothing wrong with tweaking a brand to keep up with the times. But let it be an evolution. MTN’s changes have never let down the brand and remained true, to the company’s arrival and its logo in the ’90s.

The changes were never radical enough to alienate users, nor did they come packaged with a nonsensical biography of how the logo changes were “for the people”, “for modern callers”, “for the moms who need to call their kids” , or “ for people on the go”.

Just subtle changes.