A touch on the tiller turns old logos into corporate thrillers

In search of advice on how to survive the chill of economic recession, your first port of call might not be the man who made an online brand sensation in Icesave, the Icelandic internet savings scheme now belly up like a harpooned Minke whale. But when Michael Peters talks, it’s worth listening. For over the past 40 years he has established himself as the design guru who, like few others, appreciates how clever branding can revitalise a business, particularly in a downturn.

Peters’s understanding of the importance of a good logo has reinvigorated the Universal empire and reinvented Johnnie Walker whisky for the 21st century. His badging talents are recognised by design connoisseurs (including Giorgio Armani) and astute strategists (such as Margaret Thatcher).

Whereas Naomi Klein created a handbook for the anti-globalisation movement with her 2000 bestseller No Logo, Peters, unsurprisingly, takes the opposite view and has written Yes Logo, an ode to the value of the corporate symbol.

Yes, he was behind the “name, identity and brand communication” of Icesave but says “I can take no responsibility for the demise”, having created “one of the most successful online brands in Europe”.

With its pale blue lettering and imagery of translucent Icelandic waterfalls, Icesave offered a promise of “clear difference” to its investors. “People in finance say that Icesave was an extraordinary piece of branding. It had an energy, enthusiasm, flexibility and creativity that people understood,” says Peters. “Who would have known that Landsbanki, the parent company, would have overextended itself and collapsed?”

He says he is “unbelievably saddened” that some investors were drawn to his attractive branding and ended up losing money, but says “as a piece of branding it was work that I would be very happy to rest my reputation upon”.

What Peters does best is “to take tired brands and bring them alive to make them more energetic so that consumers begin to recognise a new organisation”. He did that with Universal, galvanising its branding to reflect its new status as a global entertainments company, introducing bold and confident lettering and a more vivid representation of planet earth that pulsates with rays of light. “It’s much more energised, flexible, colourful and more representative of what entertainment is all about,” says Peters. He

also turned his hand to brighten and lend gravitas to the Penhaligon brand, famous for its range of English scents.

When he recast Johnnie Walker, he had to give a stern message to Diageo, owners of the 189-year-old brand. The famous strutting English gent in his red hunting jacket was one of the most recognised drinks logos in the world. But research showed that Johnnie Walker was seen as a drink for old men, a view reinforced by image.

“The original identity was of a stodgy Englishman striding along with his monocle and stick,” says Peters. “Johnnie Walker were trying to become much more international and youthful in their approach.”

When Peters told the company’s board that the logo would have to be ditched “their reaction was a combination of scepticism and ‘Over my dead body’.” His solution – the idea behind the highly successful Keep Walking campaign which he has worked on with advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty – was a combination of the old and the new. “A few squiggles and a few lines” created an outline which is recognisable as the old Johnnie but is strangely modern [and] the monocle has gone. “The consumers enjoy the more contemporary approach, rather than the traditional approach which they thought was for their fathers and uncles.”

Peters draws his |philosophy from Bauhaus, the pre-war German design school that recognised the busi

ness value of creativity. He grew up in Luton and studied at Yale under Bauhaus artist Josef Albers, before working for Collett Dickenson Pearce.

He went on to turn the Michael Peters Group into the largest brand design company in the world and has worked for clients including the BBC, Virgin and the new Wembley Stadium.

More British companies, he believes, would emerge strongly from the recession if finance departments were able to see the long-term value of investment in brand design. “The demise on the high street today is because accountants have put a big red pencil through the importance of building brands and those brands have gone into decline,” he says.

“It’s very much an English thing. I work with organisations in the old Iron

Curtain countries, Japan and the Middle East and the finance people there understand the importance of creativity and put more money into the development of brands.”

With many media and entertainment companies in what Peters describes as “commercial panic”, now is a good time to gain competitive advantage by winning consumer confidence through strengthening the brand to reflect “a new look, a new personality, a new point of view”, he says. “In times of recession, those companies that invest in brands are the ones that emerge in the good times as the most successful.”

But Peters’s most famous piece of work is probably the Tory torch, one of the potent symbols of Thatcherism. “Recognising that Margaret Thatcher

was going to be a very strong leader of a party that would have a lot of influence, we needed to make the torch have a personality with her hand holding it as if she were carrying the Olympic flame.”

The Conservative leader personally worked with him on the design. “She said to me ‘Mr Peters is there any chance we can make the hand a little more feminine, and so, yes, I changed it. The Conservative Party have now got a logo with a green tree and I don’t really know what it means. It’s anonymous and doesn’t reflect a strong |personality,” he says. “But I would say that because they changed my logo.”

‘Yes Logo’, 40 years of Michael Peters Branding, Design and Communication, costs £35 from Black Dog Publishing