Baby Bunting launches new ‘gender neutral’ branding
Retailer Baby Bunting has launched its new branding, which will roll out across all of its 54 stores and customer touchpoints.
The new branding was developed by creative agency Girl and Wunderman Thompson in response to customer feedback that it needed to be modern and have a gender neutral palette.
Baby Bunting’s new branding
Matt Spencer, CEO of Baby Bunting, said times have changed.
“Baby Bunting was launched 40 years ago with the purpose of supporting new and expecting parents through their parenthood journey. 40 years later, that journey and the support that new parents need has not changed. It is still a joyous but overwhelming time.
“However, the way in which new parents shop and engage with us, has changed dramatically, with more online research, ordering and social media engagement. This means that, whilst our core purpose of supporting new parents has not changed, research and customer engagement showed there was a clear need for us to update both how we presented our brand and the way in which we communicate to ensure that we reflect the modern generation of parents and better connect to their needs.
“We are launching, not just a completely new Baby Bunting brand, but a fresh way of communicating with our customers that will be seen in every aspect of Baby Bunting’s DNA,” Spencer said.
Baby Bunting’s old branding
Partner and creative director of Girl, Elizabeth Wilmott, said: “We have been thrilled to partner with Baby Bunting to develop a new brand that is contemporary and relatable. We know that becoming a new parent can be an overwhelming time and our aim was to establish a visual ID and tone of voice for Baby Bunting that would feel calming and supportive for current and future parents.”
The new branding first launched at the Baby Bunting store in Doncaster Melbourne.
GM of marketing, Sue Dawson, commented on the process of rolling the brand out across the stores.
“It will take some time to refresh all our stores and communication channels, but we are excited to see the first store, reflecting our new look, at Doncaster,” Dawson said.
“We will start to communicate the change to our customers in the coming weeks and future stores will all be launched with the new-look branding. We have a plan to refresh all existing stores over the next 12 months and introduce the new look and branding on our website, our catalogue, in email communications and other touch points from November.”
The new brand is rolling out in stores
Interestingly, this logo looks like two pregnant women.
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The old branding was fantastic.
All those distinctive assets – gone!
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcRHABbYEzcyiUZb4bMmyIfcaXYFb1X-QL4yggqljCJDOwQyA0MB
This was done by people who don’t understand marketing.
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I suspect that was the point.
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Gender neutral branding from an agency called “Girl.” How ironic. The old logo definitely needed an update but you could get that new one done on freelancer for $30. Not much better
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How to kill your brand in 1 easy step:
1) Remove all logos, colours, and identity that made your brand unique and replace it with generic out-of-the-box fonts and an easily forgettable shapes (which looks like it’s just Photoshop bucket tool in the spaces of the B’s?).
Did no one in the room know anything about the importance of distinctiveness and visual identity?
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The old ‘design’ wasn’t branding at all, and nothing from it was a) distinct, or b) was salvagable enough to deserve to be refreshed.
It was a car-crash combination of a two year-olds’s bubble letters, microsoft word font, and a shit drawing.
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Two pregnant “people” surely, because its gender neutral now. Its not pink anymore which means its for everyone, not just females. Pink means female.
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the new DDB logo?
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I am confused, can anyone tell me what was gender specific about the original logo? Sure, probably needed a refresh but I don’t see what gender has to do with it?
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It really needed an update but it looks like a pharmacy now.
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Those new bumps are certainly non binary!
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I’m with the rest. Pick up any modern good book on branding. Decoded. How brands grow. And you’ll quickly realise how many dollars you’ve just thrown in the bin.
What’s worse is you’ve replaced it with something completely disconnected with what you had.
What’s worse is there is absolutely nothing ownable or distinctive about the new logo.
It’s terrible marketing and terrible design.
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Looks great – well overdue and a good look I think.
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Before: shit
After: shit
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You can’t say something isn’t distinct and then describe it as a “car crash”. Whether it’s aesthetically pleasing or not is not the same argument as whether it is distinct or not. If you really ‘understood marketing’ you would also understand the above.
If anything, having a jarring / ugly / car crash of a brand or logo assists in it being remembered – as opposed to this vanilla, sterile, loveless, “I understand marketing”, BB logo – which looks like it belongs to a mobile phone screen repair store.
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Indeed
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It’s a shit-arse brand mark… you can’t polish a turd. This is a rough concept that should have been culled in the first meeting – not sent through to production. But hey, we’re all experts.
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Could the person who ‘borrowed’ our DDB logo please return it?
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Looks good from what I can see. Modern, clean.
The old logo is archaic and was well overdue being binned. Completely unworkable as a modern logo mark, awful colour clash, awful type clash, and let’s not even talk about the white illustrated baby.
However, why PR this now with conceptual mockups? It’s not even out. The website is still the old branding. Surely you could have waited until they’d actually rebranded.
Odd decision
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I’d guess that the majority of comments are by those who aren’t Baby Bunting’s target market – I am and I actually like it.
I appreciate the loss of the tacky pink and blue, the demon baby and awful font combo of the old logo. Previously, I thought the stores were filled with dusty old prams and naff nursery bits, but this has begun to change my perception – isn’t that the point?
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