For NBC, the brand new yr is bringing a brand new look.
The corporate is within the midst of a model refresh—subtly rolling out a brand new brand within the fall—and persevering with the replace with a brand new studio card/curtain raiser, a.okay.a. the brandmark, animation and chimes that kick-off NBC programming. Viewers can see the curtain raiser debut throughout Miley Cyrus’ New Yr’s Eve particular on Dec. 31.
“New Yr’s Eve felt like the proper day to do it. We weren’t positive if it was going to be prepared. It was all of us biting our nails, getting all the firm and ensuring all people was pleased with it and comfy with it,” Juliet Garrett, svp of artistic design for NBC, advised Adweek. “And it was only a clear sure. When it’s proper, it’s proper.”
The model refresh started on the finish of 2021. NBC enlisted the assistance of 4 businesses alongside the best way, with Loyalkaspar, Trollback+Firm, Purple Bee and Sibling Rivalry every contributing completely different views.
“We knew that we didn’t wish to enterprise removed from who we’re already. Why would we surrender one thing that’s so helpful as our model mark and our name letters? We have already got these core parts, however how can we convey them into the longer term? How can we convey them into now?” Garrett stated.
The corporate finally partnered with Sibling Rivalry to assist convey all of the views to life and work on the model’s scalability for a uniform brand throughout platforms. The concept was to make the brand impactful at any measurement.
The brand new brand, first utilized in Sunday Evening Soccer in September and in community promos for vacation specials in November, has a number of adjustments, together with balancing the house between the feathers on NBC’s peacock and eradicating the white define.
“The define made the brand like a sticker, so it sat on prime of the content material. Now with out the define, it lives and breathes with the content material,” Garrett defined. “That’s a very highly effective message proper now as a result of folks can belief that we perceive that the content material is what they’re watching. They’re not watching the community. They’re watching content material. The community provides that shorthand of, ‘You may belief us. You already know what we create, and we get you.’”
As well as, the feathers had been flattened and aligned with the colours of the dots on the brand for Peacock, NBC’s streaming platform, for consistency throughout the portfolio. NBC additionally barely tinkered with its proprietary font—aptly referred to as NBC Tinker—to extend the load and finesse of its name letters.
Plus, the beak of the NBC peacock was additionally prolonged for legibility.
“That’s one thing that we had been like, ‘Oh my gosh. What is that this affect going to have? How are we going to replace every little thing we do?’ And it’s humorous, I used to be within the elevator at 30 Rock, and I used to be wanting on the carpet within the elevator, and the beak on the carpets are already prolonged,” Garrett stated. “They had been already forward of us due to the scalability. It made it extra versatile so you may see it. They really had damaged the principles with the unique brand. That is what folks had been having to do in all these completely different shops in order that it might learn. So now we’re creating unity.”
No matter NBC’s carpets already being on board with the brand adjustments, Garrett famous that it’ll nonetheless be a “large shift” to convey uniformity all through the corporate. In spite of everything, although NBC’s chimes had been up to date in 2018, the brand wasn’t actually touched since 2013.
The studio card was extra of a problem, being the intro to all of NBC’s content material and an expertise of the model in three seconds.
“How do you try this in a approach that displays who we’re? We wish folks to really feel like once they see it, they hear it; they’re feeling one thing huge is about to occur. One thing wonderful is about to occur; an NBC present is about to occur,” Garrett stated.
The corporate landed on one thing in-house that Garrett describes as feeling “very trendy” whereas additionally having familiarity and luxury.
“It’s nearly a ‘much less is extra,’ and it’s an expression of all of our model parts multi function place. However within the easiest method that we may make that occur,” Garrett stated. “We’re thrilled with the place we landed.”
NBC will undergo a extra widespread transition to the brand new brand in 2023, timed to the premiere of its midseason programming slate, with information, sports activities and “in all places you see the NBC brand” finally reflecting the adjustments.
“Once we initially approached this undertaking, it was an leisure train, however we shortly noticed that this might profit all people. So we did a tour across the firm, assembly with our completely different companions and associates and speaking about, ‘Is that this one thing that you’d wish to undertake?’ And all people was extremely excited,” Garrett stated. “For these of us who’ve labored on many rebrands, these items by no means go that simply. And it went so simply. Everyone was simply enthusiastically on board.”
