What's behind Wipro's 'flower' logo
by Shombit Sen & Renee Jhala
Your company's corporate identity should reflect your company's values and should strike an emotional chord in your customers' mind. Shombit Sengupta, the founder of Shining Emotional Surplus, tells us how he created Wipro's new 'Rainbow Flower' logo using the 'Emotional Surplus' strategy.
Flower power
Semantically, the name Wipro does not mean anything. When we started work for Wipro in 1996 we found that every division was a different company in spirit and there was no linking concept that bonded the divisions, no branding coherency across businesses. Each division had its own separate mission, and neither Wipro as a corporation nor its identity was aspirational.
Our interactions with different Wipro stakeholders such as employees, the distribution channel, shareholders and customers allowed us to flesh out Wipro's hidden values, as well as any mismatch between corporate and customer need.
It revealed a clear picture of the different competitors, and formed the foundation for our interaction with customers. Wipro had communicated a lot of things over the years, but in the competitive scenario, what had the end-user picked up? We tried to extract this.
Our research revealed that Wipro has diligent, hardworking and sincere employees. But end-users felt Wipro had unfocussed multifaceted businesses. Wipro was seen as very cold and process-oriented, yet Wipro delivered on its commitment.
We found the corporation could take a platform of the value of essential to intelligent, from consumer products up to technology. It was important to provide an identity that linked all of Wipro's diversified businesses.
We identified four values that would provide critical benefits to end users — human values, integrity, innovative solutions and value for money. Having done that we created the core concept of 'Applying Thought' (Wipro is process oriented + thinks for you) that signifies being ahead of time.
This was the strategic leap for Wipro. The four values would converge on Wipro's corporate promise of 'Applying Thought'. And information technology would lead the corporation as an engine, while all the other businesses would be the wagons of the locomotive.
The brightness of the 'Rainbow Flower' would manifest the corporation's value of integrity, while the rainbow's fresh appearance after the storm would reflect human values.
Everyone can relate to the rainbow because it's in nature. It's rare, but when it appears everyone can see it. This simplicity and rareness would comprise value for money. The central part of the flower denoting digital complexity would reflect the value of innovative solutions.
Customer interactions through research confirmed that Wipro's identity made the corporation into a young, vibrant diversified group with a single personality.
Customers said 'Applying Thought' means that Wipro thinks for the customer's well being, is strong in R&D and thinks out-of-the-box. The flower symbolises that Wipro cares for the environment, its center shows the digital age, science and technology, its petals reflect the softness of human values.
The 'Rainbow Flower' looks feminine, 'Applying Thought' feels masculine, and Wipro in the center complements both with the colours of life. Wipro has now become an aspirational brand.
The first time people see an identity they must be provoked by it so that an interest develops. For example, towards the end of the seventies when IBM was internationally established and reputed as a gigantic IT company, Apple Computers suddenly came in with a provoking product with a relevant identity — an apple.
People could have said at that time that it's irrelevant to connect a computer and an apple. But the apple was already associated with the genius of Newton's theory of gravitation. In Biblical expression, the apple comprised the symbol of Eve being provoked by it to indulge in pleasure.
Somehow this kind of semiotic brand appeal intrigues and creates curiosity and relevance in the customer's subconscious mind.
IBM at that time used to talk literally, as a sum of all the technical greatness of its computer system. But Apple took the route of invention through the emotional path of history.
When the understanding of an identity is very prosaic, its charm is lost. It then becomes mundane, like a monotonous chore of a conjugal relationship on the rocks.
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Source:
rediff.com
