Manuel Angel Alonso Coto

You all know the story: after spending more than $800,000 on the logo, 18 people reported having epileptic seizures after viewing the animated footage. The Olympics Committee and British organizers, who were hoping the new brand would raise $4 billion to stage the games, had to withdraw the logo after more than 40,000 people have joined an online petition calling for the ad to be scrapped.

No one understands how Wolff Olins www.wolffolins.com , the agency responsible for the logo design, has had such a “catastrophic mistake” (in words of Ken Livingstone, mayor of London) since everyone knows flashing lights can cause problems…

Trying to react in order to try to avoid losing most of their clients, they have offered a solid colours version of the logo and initiated a online PR campaign to fix the public backlash: they've released a brand new website and apparently they have people searching the blogs looking for negative comments and offering the new spin. An online petition against the logo that had well over 50,000 signatures has disappeared. A new petition in support of the logo has appeared but only got under 300 signatures so far…

But a lot of advertising industry professionals have backed the agency and its creativity… What´s your opinion on this issue? Apart from the flashing lisghts, I have to recognize that as many times as I looked at the logo, it took me two days to find out it’s supposed to be the shape of the number 2012…

Best regards.

Manuel Angel Alonso Coto

Posted on 14 June 2007 in ADVERTISING

Comments

Posted by: Rubén Santaolalla at June 15, 2007 01:29 PM

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