I was fairly zapped at Anand Halve’s view on Flipkart’s logo change in AdAge India.
Now, I really respect Mr.Halve, given his work and experience, but I think I have the right (if not temerity) to disagree with this point of view… and explain the reason behind it.
I believe a big reason for the logo change is mobile app recognition! All earlier logos of Flipkart just had the name wriitten. This was particularly for the website, top-left section.
The ‘F’ icon was not present in the website, on those logos – it simply happened to be the first letter of the name. It was isolated in a mobile screen because it was not the full name and was merely the first letter with an outline of a shopping cart. I remember worrying about it as being confused with Facebook, Flickr etc. o n a mobile screen back when I was there.
As much as I make fun of ‘Ab har wish hogi poori’…
Tamil Nadu’s puzzled reaction to Flipkart’s new slogan. pic.twitter.com/hKDmAjqDQ1
? Karthik Srinivasan (@beastoftraal) May 28, 2015
…I think the new logo is in the perfectly right direction. Why? Because, there are 2 distinct elements here – the name, written fully (for desktop web) and the icon next to it, for mobile screens. The icon is not just a simple F, but conveys that it is a shopping app. And a happy one, at that 🙂 (Clever move there, Flipkart?!).
I think this makes a BIG difference, when the user is staring at 30+ icons all over the mobile screen day in and day out. The more people see and notice the name+icon combo, the more they are likely to subconsciously think of it as THE shopping app. And the more Flipkart advertises/popularizes this logo, the more the chance of people automatically moving to the ‘shopping means Flipkart’ idea, particularly on their mobile. It’s almost as if Flipkart wants people to click on the new shopping bag+F icon when they think of buying anything. And that’s the right direction too, in any case – be the most considered, default shopping app… on the mobile screen.
The logo is a great update for the mobile-first customer. It’s a different issue that I, personally, have a problem with shopping on mobile and prefer larger screens (or start with mobile and complete on another screen), but I’m sure the smart folks in Flipkart use data to make decisions on things like Myntra going app-exclusive.
I have no comments on the aesthetics of the logo – that’s a different topic altogether.