For those who don’t follow the oral care category with any great diligence, it may come as something of a surprise to learn that Colgate has had the blogosphere buzzing this week, with bloggers and tweeters from around the world focusing to the world of toothpaste and toothbrushes.

So what’s the secret? How has Colgate managed to put oral care into the headlines? Fortunately for the brand’s owners, this buzz hasn’t come from a product recall,  management scandal or general anarchy: it stems from Colgate’s announcement of a partnership with young British boy-band sensation One Direction (1-D to fans).

Starting next month, Colgate will introduce One Direction-licensed products to its MaxFresh toothbrushes and toothpaste in the US. But is this a bold, fresh move by a category leader, or simply an opportunistic exploitation of the latest craze?

There’s no question that the partnership benefits One Direction – after all, in a world where the Spice Girls could simultaneously endorse Polaroid, ASDA, Impulse and the Poppy Appeal, among others, there’s little to stop a hot property going cross-category. I imagine that their decision was at least 90% commercially motivated: although I wouldn’t want to suggest a short shelf life, the temptation to exploit any and every licensing opportunity must be present for the boys.

For Colgate, the rationale is slightly more fluid. Yes, I’d expect to see a short-term spike in sales, accompanied by some gain in market share as tweenage girls exploit their much-vaunted pester power to get Colgate into shopping baskets. Equally, there will almost certainly be a halo effect for the brand, as grateful parents jump on anything they think will encourage their DDs and DSs (‘Darling Daughters’ and ‘Darling Sons’, to quote Mumsnetters) to spend more time on their teeth. Equally, there’s probably some good PR in the concept of Colgate championing anything that encourages kids’ oral health and oral care.

So some clear short-term advantages – but from an observer’s perspective, nothing to show long-term benefit to the brand’s core values and positioning of a level to justify the imagined level of investment required to buy into Simon Cowell’s latest project.

The deeply worrying thing would be if the 1-D tie-up signalled a move by Colgate towards a continual stream of licensed products, introduced at the expense of real brand strategy anchored in compelling audience insight.

The final verdict? – A move that will be greeted by minor raptures by most females under the age of 13, and by cautious encouragement from their parents, but not a game-changer in a category that, frankly, is wide open for just that. Come on, Colgate!

Apple has being using the name of Ax chips for quite a while in iPhone advertising, but the rest of the market has kept relatively quiet, preferring to boast about number of cores and gigahertz. But this seems to be changing, as component brands show attempts to play a more prominent role.

One example was a recent advertising campaign by Snapdragon, run across different countries. And then came even more recent one in a form of a cooperative campaign by Motorola and Intel for the new RAZR i smartphone.

These are quite similar examples of ingredient branding, but the history behind these two brands is not the same. While Intel is a chip manufacturer well-known from the early “Intel inside” days and now stretching into mobile, Snapdragon, despite being widely used, seems to be less well known to general smartphone buying public. Nevertheless, it looks that Qualcomm (owner of the Snapdragon brand) has decided to change the situation and is move the brand from tech specification sheets into the consumer mind.

Thus, what we’re getting is another layer to the war of brands in the smartphone category. The top one is a master brand, e.g. Apple vs. Samsung, vs. Nokia. Then comes the layer of sub-brands or product lines: e.g. iPhone vs. Galaxy vs. RAZR. And now, not even mentioning various operating systems, we have an intensifying competition of branded components: A6 vs. Snapdragon vs. Atom… For iPhone, the overall experience and the eco-system make technical components somewhat irrelevant; but for the kingdom of Android, the specs often make the difference and this where the ingredient branding is trying to fight its battle.

It would be very interesting to see how this will unfold and whether any substantial amount of consumers would ever care about the brand of the chip-set in their phone to substantiate Qualcomm’s or Intel’s investments in this type of communication…

Last Thursday, eBay revealed its new logo. Like every redesign in branding history, it’s generated lots of feedback, with reactions from everyone from marketers and creative designers to users and non-users. Almost all of the comments have focused on the physical redesign – whether it looks more generic, has diluted its brand personality etc.

However like most creative aspects of a brand there are in fact two set of questions to think about: yes, the executional questions, but before that come the equally important strategic ones.

The public focus on the execution made me think further on the strategic issues of eBay’s redesign of its identity – and in particular, the timings of this. So without wanting to add to the design commentary, let me say that I think that on a strategic level, the timing is about right.

From my perspective, companies should consider refreshing their brand’s visual identity and/or logo when one of the following is happening:

• When the brand visual identity starts looking outdated and not in line with current context
• When it no longer fully represents what the company does or the brand stands for
  It’s important that you avoid a disconnect between who you are, what you do, and what you look like. This may be because your business has taken a new direction or has a new focus. You may have added different products or services, or developed new brand extensions.
• When the company or brand wants to reach new audiences
• And of course you may need to do this at times of merger and acquisition

What companies should not do is to change or refresh their logo or visual identity just for the sake of it. There should be a strategic business purpose behind it.

Changing a company’s visual brand identity has its risks. Not only can it affect brand familiarity or recognition, but it can also affect consumers’ esteem for the brand – and consequently the overall stature of the brand. My colleague Kamil Michlewski gave some examples recently of times when new logos for certain brands have not been well received.

In the case of eBay, the company has moved on considerably since its launch 17 years ago. It’s no longer simply an auction site for mostly used things. Today, almost two-thirds of the goods it trades are sold and bought new and at a fixed ‘Buy it now’ price. So it absolutely makes sense that the company now wants to reflect this great evolution with a refreshed visual identity.

Here at the Value Engineers we have helped many big and small companies to revitalise, relaunch or refresh their brands. So we know strategically when it’s right for companies to do so – and what it takes to build and nourish successful brands over time. If you feel the time is right to do something with your brand, then do get in touch.

A wonderful example of another Google squiggle – how taking little liberties with your brand and its identity can help keep it fresh:

For more thoughts on this, take a look at my earlier piece here.

Changing logos of well-known companies is always fraught with danger. We’ve recently seen Microsoft update theirs for the first time in their history, and not that long ago Starbucks changed theirs, foregoing ‘coffee’ from their name as it chases a bigger vision for the business.

The experience for some brands has been pretty humbling. Famously GAP was forced by its customers to revert to their original brand logo, after what they described as an irreversible decision.

Today it’s Ebay’s turn to enter the danger zone. They have just announced that they are changing their playful and personable logo with chunky, overlapping letters to one with straight, slim-down typeface where letters have been ordered to behave.

It will be interesting to see how the consumer reaction unfolds, after all Ebay is perhaps even more than other brands owned by its customers and users due to the nature of the business.

In my opinion the logo now expresses a brand which is less characterful, less joyful but more structured and generic. Is this what Devin Wenig, President of eBay has in mind for the new positioning of the venerable brand? I, for one, hope not.