The government is standing by its decision to adopt a controversial image of wattle that bears an unfortunate resemblance to a coronavirus as a new national brand logo.
Trade minister Simon Birmingham has approved a report by the National Brand Advisory Council recommending the image, which Austrade has confirmed cost $10 million to develop.
In its recommendation to the minister the council says while the current green and gold kangaroo logo is immediately recognisable, “we considered whether it would shift perceptions of our nation or simply reinforce what people already know about us”.
The council, whose members include mining magnate Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, Qantas boss Alan Joyce, Australia Post CEO Christine Holgate and Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes, said it preferred the wattle design.
“This small beautiful flower is an optimistic burst of positivity in bright joyous gold,” their report says. “It speaks of warmth, expanding ideas and horizons”.
But while the council saw “pollen-laden stamens radiating warmth, energy and dynamism”, critics took to Twitter to describe it as as “cat-sick”, “scattered raisins” or a coronavirus.
Associative networks
Curtin university branding expert Billy Sung said consumers were likely to link the symbol with coronavirus because of what is known in the business as “associative networks”.
“Consumers operate in an associative network where they process new information according to existing information,” he told radio 6PR this week.
The Coronavirus comparison “goes back to our associative network because given our exposure to virus images day-in and day-out it really does look like the images that are being shown all over the place to symbolise the virus” he said.
The report notes that the design was “market tested” to 16,000 people in China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, the US and the UK, and was reviewed by international semiotics experts.
Mr Birmingham on Friday said the new symbol would not replace the Australian Made logo or the Australian Made kangaroo, although it would be used at international trade shows and events.
The wattle logo needed to be viewed in “totality”, said.
“This is not some single logo that we are about to go out and use – it is about a colour palette, a story of how we present Australia, using the wattle imagery in a modern way to bring those different elements together,” he told radio 5AA.
An Austrade spokeswoman said despite the criticism the official launch of the new brand would go ahead as planned later this month.
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To advertise Australia you need something the world associates with Australia and is widely known.
I doubt anyone not knowing what the new emblem is, would recognise it as the Australian wattle flower.
Australia’s National flower emblem is the Flinders Range Wattle , is this the Flinders range wattle flower!
The new logo is a nonsense.
Your new logo should have been planned well before the sherry and dinner. I am sure you realized next morning you had made a blue. Please do not inflict that cats chuck on us.
AU is gold on the periodic table of elements. This is also a confusion on logo. Other than mining magnate involved would have liked that. Waste of money at such a difficult time on our country.
$10 Million to develop…….are you for real!
As a branding and marketing professional of more than 20 years I am dumbfounded by the cost and the outcome. Firstly and most critically Wattles and their beautiful blossoms are NOT unique to Australia and not identified as ‘Australian’ per se. This is a massive flaw.
The artwork may be considered lovely but unless you are inside the tent – aka present at the briefing launch – you will have absolutely no idea of what the artwork actually is.
I work daily in branding and in the areas I specialise in I see many international symbols, icons and logos and where a country is promoting itself it is always crystal clear who that country is.
Next – if the cost of implementing no doubt includes printing and other collateral. One would hope because if the Gov was charged $10m for concept, brand manual (style guide) and final artwork – how can I get a gig like that!
Lastly it could be remedied by adding a couple of leaves but… it will never be UNIQUELY Australian, OBVIOUSLY Australian and that to my mind is either a failure of the Brief or the Agency.
No one would know what that logo is unless they were told, and quite frankly, I don’t see Australia as being highly regarded in coming up with such an insipid logo. that does nothing to highlight Australia both in design and colour. If Australia want a logo representing Australia then the people of Australia should decide what sort of a logo they want. Preferably via a competition and come up with a selection of 6 logos that truly and boldly represent Australia, and get Australia to vote for what they consider the best.
You say that 500 people in Australia were asked what they thought about the logo. My mind boggles as to why you would ask overseas countries. Have you ever had an overseas country ask you for your opinion as to something as important as their logo? You have probably had more Australians tell you that they don’t like it and yet you intend to go ahead with it? Whose country is this – the Council’s or the people of Australia?
What an absolute waste of money producing an emblem which will probably not have any meaning outside Australia and even more to the point not much meaning in Australia. What is wrong with the current logo, which is easily recognised??
Wattle, pun intended, were the people who designed this thinking!!!
New Australian Brand Logo.
LOGO OMISSION – the words: Australian Made or Made in Australia.
Whilst not wishing to be critical of the designer, the awarded company and those approving our new Australian Brand Logo have missed the point. I wish to point out, that the wattle inspired new logo has omitted the words Australian Made or Made in Australia.
The logo as is presently, is more appropriate for a singular brand product. And not suitable in my view for an umbrella over all Australian brands collectively, those made in Australia. The word, as caption: Australia, is inadequate. This is open to individual opinion. I would replace it with – Australian Made. I design logos and corporate image as part of my work as an illustrator. And therefore speak from experience. To do away with the kangaroo in the first instance is a mistake of significant proportion. Why? If a gold foil look was wanted, it could have been utilised on the kangaroo. There are many instances, where drastic change, for the sake of change, fails. An expensive advertising campaign should not be required to educate on a logo that should be instantly recognisable, and in this instance fails to do its job. The brief should be to design an instantly recognisable Country of Origin logo for ALL Australian brands collectively. Not a new brand logo for a single or new product like a shoe company or breakfast cereal. This is the difference, and should be rectified before going to press.
A bit of a conflict of interest for Alan Joyce. He would have lobbied hard for anything but the kangaroo, as his business has monopolised and hijacked our kangaroo. This why we got this junk.
Whether we like it or not the kangaroo is one icon where anywhere in the world any kindergarten child to adult would identify with Australia.
There is probably more money to be made by communicating this incoherent gold symbol concept to the world.
In addition to all the above, in my view, valid criticisms; it seems odd that we would need to add Latin letters to a logo to let a global audience recognise this as Australian. As they say a picture speaks 1,000 words!! This design does not strike me as obviously uniquely Australian. Instead of having a bunch of CEOs on the committee, we should have had a bunch of eminent Australian designers!! Surely we have a few!!!
Perhaps my eyes are not the best, but it is blurry and difficult to see the chemical symbol for gold.
Austrade has done this before… their lastest logo (before this silly one) was a flop and a huge expense as well – imagine… 10 million dollars for this weird wattle wack… (that’s on top of what they already spent a few years ago on the other silly logo). Meanwhile to “cut expenses” they are closing offices in key export markets or reducing the amount of subsidised help to Australian Exporters. Such a shame because their work overseas is an asset to exporters; much needed assistance that ultimately helps the Australian economy grow. Bring back the logo they used in the late nighties and early 2000’s, – if the reference to the kangaroo is that detrimental, then just use the government crest as they have always done on official documents. Problem solved, 10 million dollars saved.