Brand Anew: Southwest’s Heartfelt Redesign
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APEX Insight: Every airline logo tells a story. Deciphering its narrative is key to relaunching the brand. In this section of the multipart feature, we look at how Southwest transplants a universal symbol into the core of its brand.
The line between logo, icon and emoji has become ever more blurry, and for Southwest Airlines, that’s a good thing. In early 2013, with the integration of AirTran nearly complete and the repeal of the Wright Amendment restrictions looming, the airline was preparing a new design brief that called for more than a new paint job – top of the order was to create an iconic brand symbol.
At the time, the 47-year-old airline’s brand legacy was bold, but not always congruent; identities ranged from orange-hot-pant-outfitted flight attendants to its red-bellied Canyon Blue Spirit liveries. “When we looked at our old brand, it was so inconsistent in the way we were handling it,” said Michael Anne Wade, Southwest’s manager of Marketing Communications. The heart first appeared in the airline’s brand portfolio in 1971 and has never fully vanished, but has always had to compete for pride of place, even with its various incarnations (there are more than 100).
“We needed one consistent look for our brand,” Wade said, noting that Starbucks, Apple and Target were all sources of inspiration because of their easy-to-identify symbols. To design the logo, Southwest turned to global creative consultancy Lippincott, which started with an internal brand audit. “In [our] examination, we identified the most potent symbolic asset: the heart,” Lippincott’s project overview explains. “We chose to use the heart to make a bigger statement.”
“In [our] examination, we identified the most potent symbolic asset: the heart.” – Lippincott
“Bold blue,” “warm red,” “sunrise yellow” and “summit silver” add a swirl of color and pay tribute to the brand’s retro palette and associate the common symbol to the brand. Instead of red-bellied liveries, planespotters now see the heart on Southwest aircraft overhead. To ensure the recognition of the symbol would stick, the airline built in a three-year strategy that involves not using the heart symbol alone until 60 to 70 percent of people can readily identify the brand association.
The heart as a symbol has origins dating back to the ice age, and has a versatile and positive association. In our social lexicon, it’s come to mean “favorite” on Twitter and “like” on Instagram, and recently replaced the thumbs-up “like” option on Facebook in favor of the more emphatic “love.” For Southwest, the heart represents warmth, compassion, care and the “heart” of its employees.
Latching onto the heart’s meme-like social potential, the airline incorporated its logo into its brand language with punchy taglines, “Without a heart it’s just a machine,” and hashtags, #SouthwestHeart and #NonstopLove. Judging by the social media response to its unveiling, fans seem to really heart the new look.
“Brand Anew” was originally published in the 7.2 April/May issue of APEX Experience magazine.