[Foundation-l] Hypothetical project rebranding Wikimedia

[Nathan]

On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 12:06 PM, Orionist <orion.ist at gmail.com> wrote:

> The brand analysis is very accurate, and I agree with most of it. Except
> for
> the "weak brand" part: we have a rather unbalanced brand power, where
> Wikipedia has a strong, widely recognizable brand, while the sister
> projects
> and the foundation don't.
>
> The end result however is not good. The way it's done is the way I see most
> ad agencies work nowadays: they work to create a concept and presentation
> that wow their client and insure they take the job, but in the real world
> no
> one will have an idea what the brand is supposed to represent and why it
> looks so bad.
>
> Back to the analysis they did. It's useful for us to take note of the
> points
> raised. For example the lack of a mobile platform (I think we're working on
> that, right?) and the fact that we're not "communicating our story" or
> using
> the sister projects to "leverage Wikipedia's potential as the world’s
> learning resource," and If I may add, using Wikipedia to leverage the
> potential of the sister projects.
>
> Regards,
> --
> Orionist
>
>
>
Echoing Orionist; I agree that the analysis is interesting and often spot-on
(if brief), particularly with respect to how little "marketing" of the
notion of Wikipedia/Wikimedia we do outside of the fundraiser. They lost me
with the logos, though. The differences between the project logos don't
indicate anything to the viewer; they are almost random variations of the
shape "W", and no one who hasn't read the logo pitch will understand what is
meant to be conveyed. The puzzle globe logo is widely recognizable, and
there's no clear benefit in abandoning it for something else.

Nathan