Creative Director’s Choice: Paul Woods of Edenspiekermann LA talks up the Ogilvy rebrand
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Ogilvy rebrand by Collins
This week, Paul Woods, chief creative officer at Edenspiekermann Los Angeles, discusses the right moves made by Collins on the recent Ogilvy rebrand.
By now, you probably have already read half a dozen reviews about the Ogilvy rebrand – the new wordmark, expanded color palette and simplified organizational structure. Why another one? Actually, the reason is quite personal.
Like so many others, the voice of David Ogilvy had a big impression on me and my career. It was while reading his Confessions of An Advertising Man on a vacation that I was inspired to go ahead and write my own book on running a creative agency (the upcoming Doing Great Work Without Being an Asshole). Therefore, while I have never been an Ogilvy employee (nor am I currently planning to be), I feel a certain connection to this individual that has influenced my career significantly.
Strategically, this rebrand makes all the right moves. The past decades had seen the Ogilvy brand move from a single creative powerhouse, to a fractured ecosystem of sub-brands (Ogilvy Public Relations, Social@Ogilvy, etc), relegating the legendary agency to that of a holding company, akin to IPG or Publicis. The new identity firmly reverses this trend, placing the Ogilvy name back in its rightful place as a masterbrand of a unified, creatively-led organization.
While not groundbreaking by any means, the new logo is still an elegant evolution of the previous wordmark. Small details such as the joined “g and i” ligature visually reinforce the idea of a newly unified brand. However, it is in the organizational architecture that the rebrand comes to life in the most impactful way: restructuring the organization around six capabilities-based business units, moving it away from the “holding company” path that the agency was slipping down recently. Combined with the logo, this aspect of the rebrand is what is most likely to help return to classic Ogilvy form in almost all aspects.
When it comes to the applications of the brand, there is certainly some room for improvement. The almost brutalist san-serif typographic treatments of some of the posters come across as trying too hard, as do the new color pairing that have slight undercurrent of something you’d see on a design student's portfolio. But, by and large, the rebrand is a masterclass evolving a legacy brand for a new era.
Would David have liked the new evolution? Possibly. Possibly not. But 70 years on, perhaps that’s what the original master of change would have wanted to see.
Paul Woods is chief creative officer at Edenspiekermann LA, a European-based design company with offices in Europe, Asia and the US.
See elements of the rebrand by clicking the Creative Works box below.
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