Why Brands Change their Logos Depending on a Country
It takes years to make a competent identity of a logo and a brand spends huge time and money on promoting its logo to the right people and at the right place. Whether a small local business or an internationally recognized brand, each has to conduct a thorough research before getting a perfect logo that can effectively represent their respective brands. But, despite doing all these activities, most of the brands come across with different problems that are not initially imagined. Especially international brands have to perform certain changes to please different people in different countries. Considering this, below you can find some effective reasons why brands have to change their logo depending on the countries in which they are offering their products or services.
- Already Recorded
A professional logo design is one that is made following a thorough research about all the countries in which its brand will be working. Otherwise, a brand has to make some changes in its brand name to make its presence in a certain country where the same name is already recorded by someone else. For example, Dunkin Donuts easily used its brand name in all the countries, but had to change it in Spain because the word “Donut” was already recorded by someone else in Spain. So, the brand changed its name to “Dunkin Coffee” to continue its business in Spain.
- Double Meaning Words
Language is also one of the difficulties that brands come across with. It also happens that a word that has some particular meaning in its origin country holds a different meaning in another language. For example, AXE, that was one of the most famous brands in France, had to change its name before entering in the English-speaking countries. Why? It is because the word “AXE” has a different meaning in English language and cannot be promoted in public as a brand. So, the brand chose another name “Lynx” to enter into the United States and some other English Speaking countries.
Sometimes words acquire double meaning and considering this, a brand has to make changes in its name to enter into a new market. It becomes difficult for a brand to do its promotions with a new name. But, it cannot continue with such a name that may be inappropriate for the people of a particular country.
- Renaming By a Merger
A brand name is also changed when two or more companies are merged together to do a business together in a specific country. The name then contains some characters from one brand and others from the other one. The same happened with Vodafone, a famous British Multinational Company having its headquarter in London. Vodafone is famous across the world with its name except in Africa. In Africa, the company was merged with Telecom so the brand in Africa got a new name, “Vodacom”. However, it maintained its anagram so that people can recognize the original brand.
- Expansion
Expansion can also be a cause of changing a brand name. In expansion, it may happen that a multinational company buys some local industries of a product like Unilever did once while it acquired different ice cream companies in different countries. When a multinational company enters in a country to expand its business, it contacts the brands that are already in the country so that it can easily make its strong presence in a new market.
- Give a Local Feel
Many companies change their names and choose a local name to promote their products or services in a particular country. Why do they do this? They do this in order to get a local feel with the help of a local world. Multinational companies have full rights to change their brand or product names in a country so that the people living in that country can easily understand the meaning of that word. If you live in the US, you must have heard the famous chips brand, “Lays”. In Spain, it is famous with the same name, but in Australia, the brand has another name that is “Smith’s”. Similarly, in the UK and Ireland it is famous as “Walkers”, in Brazil as “Elma Chips”, and in Mexico as “Sabritas”.
Other Famous Brands That Are Different in Other Countries
- Burger King and Hungry jack’s
Burger King is a world famous fast food chain that offers delicious flame grilled burgers. This fast food chain is famous all over the world with its name “Burger King” except Australia. It is because that the name had already been taken from a local takeaway food shop in Adelaide. So, in compulsion, the brand had to choose another name that is “Hungry Jack’s”.
- Coco Pops and Choco Krispies
Since breakfast is one of the most important meals of a day, people do care about the brands that offer breakfast products. “Coco Pops” or “Choco Krispies” is a famous brand that is famous with different names in different companies. In the UK, South Korea, New Zealand, Italy, and South Africa, the brand is famous with the name, “Coco Pops”. While, in countries like Portugal, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Spain, it is famous as “Cocoa Krispies”.
- Dove and Galaxy
If you are a chocolate lover, you must be a love of “Dove” as well. Dove is the leading chocolate brand that is famous across the world. However, the brand is famous with a different name “Galaxy” in countries like India, Indonesia, Isle of Man, Ireland, and in the UK.
Author’s Bio
Steve Jackman is a well known digital marketing manager in Crafted Logo, the most professional logo design company in the world. He started his career as technical content writer and then promoted to content marketing specialist due to his excellent technical writing skills. He also has good command over SEO and Social Media Marketing.
