About 7 years ago, my brother and I were remodeling my grandma’s bathroom. It was a full gut. Drywall: gone; new plumbing: yep; you name it: we replaced it. We spent multiple thousands of dollars that involved a lot of different brands.
My grandma made sure my brother and I knew one thing that she wanted. She only had one request. She wanted her faucets to all be made by Moen.
We took her to the store to pick them out. She walked right up to the wall with all of the options and pointed right to the logos with the red and blue waterdrops on them. My 80-year-old grandma knew the Moen brand because of the red and blue drops in their logo.
We always gave Grandma what she wanted.
Six years later, my brother and I agreed to fully gut our parents’ bathroom. Another full remodel. We wanted the Moen brand just the same. We headed off to the store to make the purchase. My brother and I stood staring at the wall of faucet options.
“Where is Moen at?”
“Is this the same Moen brand?”
The logo had changed. No more red and blue waterdrops.
I didn’t think much of this until recently.
I was in a meeting with Tom Wanek, who used to work for Moen earlier in life. He told me how he recently drove by their headquarters; he lives near that city, and he noticed that the red and blue drops on their sign were not lit up.
“Light bulbs must be burned out.”
But he realized, after doing some research, that Moen had removed those drops from their logo. They had just removed the bulbs until they could get the right sign in place.
We both agreed that Moen just killed a huge asset of theirs.
I had to know if there was an explanation, so I went and did a little research of my own. I had little luck, but I did find a logo document produced about 10 years ago by Moen themselves. Take a look.
The waterdrop, in their own words:
-Is essential
-Is instantly memorable
-Helps tell their story
-Should never be separated
-Would confuse audiences if removed
My hands are on your shoulders and I am looking into your eyes, hear what I am saying to you:
“Before you change the logo that helps tell your story and is instantly memorable, you better have an 80-year-old grandma telling you to do so. Until then, sleep on it.”
One more thing,
“If your logo isn’t memorable, and doesn’t help tell your story, we have partners who can help.”
Talk soon,
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