© Priya Narayanan, Assistant Professor of Marketing, IIM Kozhikode. Views are personal.

This article was first published on July 24, 2023 (after edits) in The Hindu BusinessLine BrandLine and is available here on the publisher’s website.

Note: Post the writing of this article, Twitter rebranded to X in a seemingly arbitrary and unnecessary move. But given Elon Musk’s penchant for names that might sound odd to others, the rebranding of Twitter is no surprise.

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Pepsi’s recent announcement of its new logo has put the spotlight on brand logos, those ubiquitous symbols that stand for brands and often convey much more than any textual description could. The redesign of Pepsi’s logo makes us wonder whether the design of the logo matters all that much. Put simply, if Nike had always sported a squiggle instead of the iconic swoosh, would that still make us just do it and buy our Nikes?