Vodacom Re-brand: Seeing Red

Vodacom Re-brand: Seeing Red

By Darren Olivier   Tuesday, April 12, 2011   2 comments:

Vodacom, RSA’s market leader in the cellular network space with a market share of 58% and 23 million customers (Wikipedia), is undergoing a major re-brand from its traditional blue/green to red. If you live in RSA, you cannot miss it - it is just as well that you do not have to stop your car on the way to work, every time a billboard goes red. However, it is worth pausing, even if the colour is red and not orange.


The rebrand is not just a marketing tinker. It is the much-talked about and delayed alignment of Vodacom’s branding with its parent company in the UK, Vodafone. It’s really a partial re-brand for the time being; Vodafone’s red and "apostrophe" are now evident but the name Vodacom remains, revealing a measure of caution and for good reason too.

Red is a primary, powerful colour but the colour also has other connotations. A fight breaks out during a school rugby derby between an English school that plays in red and an Afrikaans school playing in brown. The headlines the next day refer to the Anglo-Boer war and the annual fixture is subsequently cancelled. It’s a knee jerk reaction but powerful if the colour connotation sticks. Vodafone are looking to spread their influence over Africa where anti-colonial feelings can be very strong. Using red has obvious risks for the UK giant.

Locally, Vodacom sponsors the Blue Bulls based in Pretoria, where the company has a significant subscriber base. The Lions who play in a red/white strip are based in nearby Johannesburg. Does Vodacom reconsider the sponsorship and risk marginalising the faithful or retain it, with all the mixed messages the dual branding could provoke? Vodacom’s sensitivity to this is illustrated in some of its re-branding adverts where the only blue that is retained on screen, depicts the Blue Bulls.

If anyone doubted the ability of a single colour to act as a badge of quality and origin ie function as a trade mark, this re-brand and Vodacom’s obvious advertising spend on educating customers to their new look should convert you. There are even rumours that Vodacom paid off competitor Cell C (whose branding had included red) not to enforce any residual rights they could prove in the colour, against them.

It is difficult to imagine the rumour being true although the telecoms space is no stranger to brand wars over colours. Afro-IP has reported on a number of them, mainly over the colour Orange (stop here! for more information on Neotel, Iburst and Orange Telecoms’ fight over the colour orange, and the difficulties protecting single colours). Now look around at Cell C and their new advertising campaign. It’s directed straight at Vodacom’s new branding and provoked Vodacom into lodging a complaint before the Advertising Standards Authority that the campaign is disparaging to their brand. Is it…or is it [also] just more exposure for both Cell C and Vodacom?

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Cell C - the power is not in your C

Cell C - the power is not in your C

By Darren Olivier   Monday, August 23, 2010   4 comments:

There has been much controversy over Cell C's (South Africa's third largest mobile operator) brand tinkering in South Africa. First was the contrived You Tube clip (controversy explained by Marklives here) and the second is the refusal of its re-worked logo by CIPRO.

Whilst public opinion is divided on the new ad campaign (I fall into the "well done! sector"), Cell C will not be able to escape the provisional refusal to register its new logo. CIPRO, on the other hand, are spot on and with refreshing efficiency too.

The devilish detail is contained in the Trade Mark Regulations:

10. Unregistrable marks

(1) Subject to the provisions of any other law, the Registrar may refuse to accept any application upon which any of the following appear:
(a) The words 'patent', 'patented', 'by letters patent', 'registered', 'registered trade mark', 'registered design', 'copyright', 'certified', 'guaranteed' or words to like effect; and
(b) the letters '®', ' ©' or similar combinations which may be construed to import a reference to registration.

Cell C filed 70 applications - the first batch on 1 December last year and the second on 12 July 2010. All of the applications include the potentially fatal copyright symbol. The first batch of 43 have been provisionally refused meaning that CIPRO almost certainly raised an objection under Regulation 10 (in double quick time too - it must be said).

There is a way around the objection and perhaps a smart trade mark attorney will make the suggestion below? However, it is difficult to avoid the acknowledgement that Cell C's new trade mark is legally weak. Please let me know a judge that will allow anyone exclusivity to the copyright symbol or to the word "cell" for that matter for telecoms. The irony too is that logos are often protected by copyright but not so in this case.

So Cell C spend millions building a brand in a market which is dominated by two main players, where margins are low and the need to differentiate is crucial. Yet the marketing department hampers its own efforts by choosing a trade mark that will be costly and, at best, unpredictable to protect. On the positive side, I am delighted they did not choose the colour orange - which is about as muddy as its namesake river in the telecoms space (as explained by the link).

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