Rebranding BBC One
Dancing Hippos.
Large Moons.
Ring o’ Roses.
Shining Windows.
Precision Footballers.
Can you see any pattern in these random concepts? Well, if you hadn’t already heard, they are just a few of the concepts behind the latest rebranding efforts for BBC One.
From the 7th of October, you will be seeing a new batch of BBC One idents in between your favourite license-paid programmes. The new set of idents all end up creating the illusion of a circle. This is a remarkable twist considering the previous controller of BBC One, Lorraine Heggessey, dropped the globe identity from the channel back in 2002 and they are now trying to reinforce their International scope with this circle idea.
While I’m all for rebranding to keep the image of a company up-to-date, I somehow feel a little robbed by the Beeb. Apparently, the whole package cost a cool £1.2million but this comes at a time when the cost of our beloved TV licence is looking to rise at quite a substantial amount over the next 10 years. Is this really a good time to go spending the public’s money on an identity that doesn’t really need rebranding and at such a high cost?
Don’t get me wrong. The new images look quite good and the new BBC One logo seems to be very friendly but why reinvent the wheel? The corporation are fundamentally stuck with their blocky, Gill Sans BBC logo for a long time to come (think how much it would cost to change that across the board!) so trying to inject some new life into a channel that needs more attention on programme schedules rather than domestic adverts seems a little absurd.
Update.
Below is a montage of all the new BBC One idents in the YouTube video below.
What do you think? Is this money well spent or just another waste of license-payers money? Let me know.
I’d like to think I am some sort of expert on this subject, as my dissertation was about television branding in the mult-channel age (see http://www.lloydyweb.com/articles/dissertation/), and I’m also a closet fan of television idents (do you want to see my collection of idents from all terrestrial channels from the 80’s and 90’s…?). I have to say I like this new set of idents a lot.
In essense, it has undone the mess, and political correct nonsense Lorraine Heggesy threw all over BBC ONE four years ago with that dancing nonsense. They call it a circle, but let’s not beat around the bush here, it can easily be seen to hark back to the channel’s heritage, and the globe. I can’t help but feel this is the identity package we should have got in 2002.
As to your comment about the BBC logo, I don’t think they stuck with as such, although it will remain for many years to come due to the flexibility of it’s design. The previous slanted logo dated very quickly, but given that the current BBC logo, is very clean, simple and uncomplicated, yet is also stylish, means it can work with most if not all designs. You should think of the current BBC logo much in the same way as NBC’s peacock, or the CBS eye - very simple forms, that have standed the test of time.
I’m actually glad that the BBC are moving away from using Gill Sans outside of the logo however - it was getting a bit overkill, but at the same time, I think because of the restriction of type usage has lessened, the BBC is a bit like a kid in a candy store, and using different fonts for the shear hell of it. The BBC’s News output now uses Helvetica (or similar) and it doesn’t look as commanding or respectable as Gill Sans did. It also looks a bit cheap. The current fonts used in trailiers for BBC ONE and THREE are also pretty dire.
Overall, I like the new BBC ONE idents - and keeping the red color in there too links it with the previous set of idents too.
(Hmmm, I may now blog these comments! Cheers Si!)
Paul
27 Sep 06 at 12:07 pm
Indeed, you can see my post titled The One To Watch.
Would love your feedback mate!
Paul
27 Sep 06 at 1:34 pm
Well u know mine and Ross’ feelings towards the bbc.. so all i have to say is err.. Chris Moyles and Johothan Ross’ Wages would probrably equate to that so it’s a small price to pay in the grand scale of things, and i think after 4 years they need to re brand (all those nights i have been waiting for those bloody skate borders to fall over or the black guy in the wheal chair to fall backwards, or the guy doing slow mo karati kicks, hoping he will clowt the other guy in the face). The bbc earns a shit loads off us and since they have had that new director general they seem to have stoped showing repeats, and improved there TV, Radio, and Website… and i still think ther is more to come..
(i know i’d love a cople of million to do what they have just done).. bring on the hippo!!!
This i coming from some one that cant afford a digi box from sky or a freeview box (although film four is very temptin now its free)… I think for £110 for 2 analogue tv channles and 7 or 8 radio stations and the 7th most visited website on the web with clear good content is well worth my £110 quid..
Can u imagine if the rest of the world worked like this..
K, now im ranting.. nice blog entry.. i was gonna blog this on mine but u beat me to it and mine aint up yet..
Gareth Brown
27 Sep 06 at 10:32 pm
I’m with the crowd on this one Si. If they put the TV Licence up to £500 I’d still pay without a murmur, mainly for the luxury of having tv and radio with no adverts and thus no advertisers to answer to.
Putting it into context, as Gareth said, Jonathan Ross’ salary is rumoured to be £6m a year which would probably pay for the next 30 years of BBC rebranding.
I’d agree with Paul though that they should have done this in 2002, I wasn’t a great fan of the old idents.
Ross Riley
30 Sep 06 at 11:03 pm
It might have cost £1.2 million but as there shown like 200+ times a week, so over the course of around four years they work out at around £30 a showing. Considering some of them have a lot of effects, I’d say that’s pretty cheap.
Tom
11 Oct 06 at 12:00 pm