James Moore: Thomas Cook and its wild flight of fancy

Outlook Harriet Green has (Thomas) cooked up a new logo for the travel company, and a new slogan too. "Don't just book it, Thomas Cook it" has been dispensed with in favour of "Let's Go". Yes let's. Go anywhere to get away from the horrible heart-shaped thingy that is the new logo.

Apparently it was developed internally. Great news for branding agencies, that. They can point to it and say, "Look at what you get when you don't hire us."

It's true that rationalising the company's multitude of brands makes a lot of sense, and the old logo and slogan had been around a long time, including some very bad times when the company looked as if it might go pop. The problem is what they've been replaced with.

Now let's be fair. According to the finance chief, Michael Healy, the heart-shaped thingy has "heightened brand awareness, driven more website traffic, increased early and repeat bookings and improved conversion rates".

Well he would say that, wouldn't he? Still, given the state that the company was in when Ms Green took over, maybe we should forgive her this indulgence. Before she righted the ship, there had been a good chance that there wouldn't be a company to launch a horrible new logo. All the same, perhaps next time she can dream up something a bit better during one of her 4am yoga sessions.