Great points should always be repeated, and repeated, like this one:

...you don’t push a $48 billion company to adopt a new logo just because designing new logos is fun. Instead, this is one of the most underrated challenges in the identity industry: to revitalize a company through a new identity strategy that doesn’t rely on a shiny new thing front and center.

On a different note, I'd like to call attention to the influencer/influenced aspect of this rebrand. The Pfizer rebrand is no doubt fresh and looks great. I'm a big fan of the dots and dot-infused typeface, but it calls to mind GE's innovation rebranding effort earlier this decade.

GE's rebranding in 2004 was done by Wolff Olins and included a new palette of bright colors and a new corporate typeface, Inspira. Inspira was modern, soft, rounded and approachable. Corporations are always trying to convince people that they're anything but cold machines who's only purpose it to increase profits.

Influencer - GE 2004 rebrand:

Influenced - Pfizer 2009 rebrand:

The point of this comparison is not to diminish Pfizer's rebranding efforts, but to point out that we're all on a continuum, we'ew not in a vacuum.

The word 'blog' carries a stigma with it for some people. It's a cutesy word, sounds a bit childish. It's one reason I call Daily Exhaust my online journal. Online journal is just as accurate as blog (if not more) and it carries more professionalism to it (The next step down from 'blog' would have been 'diary', and I would have sounded like a 13-year-old girl writing about My Little Pony).

But never underestimate the power of the blog. Blogs are capable of so much. And by 'so much', I'm talking about success and money. While most blogs consist of nothing more than a log of thoughts, quotes, images, videos and anecdotes, some venture into the territory of obsessions and thesis projects.

Case in point - Footnotes of Mad Men. The premise of the blog is very simple: to explain all the historical references shown and talked about in the AMC series Mad Men.

The creator of the series, Matthew Weiner (of Sopranos fame), is obsessed with details. We the viewers are the ones who ultimately benefit from this obsession. We get a show that sparkles - from words, to clothing down to the size of the fruit on the table (for more on Weiner, check out Vanity Fair's profile on him).

And so, from a creator obsessed with details, we get a blogger obsessed with documenting those details and a readerbase obsessed with learning about those details.

Quality begets quality.

It's no surprise then, that Footnotes creator Natasha Vargas-Cooper revealed news in September that Harper Collins will be adapting her blog into a book.

Think beyond your labels.

influenced:

2010 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG