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In the parlance of Facebook – ‘like’.
World Duty Free Group’s new logo and corporate identity unveiled this morning, features what the company calls a “two-colour infinity icon”.
The company notes: “The flexible, sweeping lines within the logo are inspired by the architecture of airport environments; whilst the rounded shapes and ‘organic’ nature of the infinity symbol itself, reinforce the sentiments of partnership and collaboration.”
I don’t know about you but I just see a butterfly, arguably the purest expression of the magical concept of flight. I don’t often say this about a corporate logo (and I promise you I’m not turning sad in my old age) but I think it’s beautiful.
World Duty Free Group, the end result of the prolonged integration over recent years of World Duty Free, Aldeasa and Alpha, says there are currently no plans to change the individual fascias on the group’s stores.
It notes: “The main tax and duty free brands of Aldeasa and World Duty Free have valuable brand equity, in terms of the reputation and goodwill that has been built up over many years in these familiar names.”
Mmmm… perhaps so, but the group’s current branding around the world is something of a mish-mash.
At Heathrow Airport Terminal 1 yesterday, for example, I saw two different logos (pictured below) for World Duty Free (the retail brand as opposed to the group) stores within a few metres of one another and around the world you’ll see further variations on the theme (for example Autogrill Lanka in Sri Lanka). Even the newer, modern version (second photo below) is not a patch on today’s corporate identity.
Sometimes there are partnership or contractual reasons not to change a name but this new logo is so potentially iconic in my view that the group may yet be tempted to roll it out across its store network. Alternatively it may just take flight by itself…