A few weeks ago CBS Radio Chief Executive Dan Mason hit the road pitching CBS Radio's initiatives to reinvigorate radio. Read about it here. The roadshow included a new logo shown here.
Contrast the CBS Rethink Radio logo with the NAB's Radio Heard Here logo.
Both logos are designed to fire up people about radio. To sell radio to those who feel radio is old fashion, out of touch, and irrelevant. Which logo does a better job of doing that?
Radio Heard Here is passive. It states the obvious without offering any unique benefit. Radio is heard here if you have a radio. But so is an iPod, streaming, satellite, and anything else you happen to have with you. The lightning-bolt-like arrows give the logo a dated look. The look invokes the feel of a Great Depression (or Bolshevik Russia) poster. The typestyle is something out of the 1950s. Combine all the pieces and you have a logo that does just the opposite of what you hope to accomplish. It reinforces the negative impressions that people already have about radio. Radio Heard Here is a marketing disaster.
Contrast that with Rethink Radio. The logo is active. It is a call to action. Not only that, it says exactly what we need to be saying to listeners and media buyers: Rethink Radio. The logo is much more contemporary. The head is highly stylized--something you would find in a hip magazine. The lower case type-style reinforces the contemporary feel of the ad and works well with the head. All the pieces work well together to make it a compelling logo.
The people behind Rethink Radio clearly understand what needs to be done visually to create a campaign to reinvigorate radio. The people behind Radio Heard Here clearly do not. The NAB should approach Dan Mason and ask permission to use the concept and logo--and then ask to hire the people who created it. It is Radio 2020's only hope.
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