Tonight, at midnight Eastern Standard Time, Yahoo! will unveil its new logo. If you’re confused—yes, Yahoo! has been “unveiling a new logo” (read: comic sans rendering of Yahoo!) at midnight for the past 29 days. It’s all part of an unusual plan to evade the virulent public backlash that has haunted many recent corporate rebrands. But will it work?
Yahoo! joins a long list of companies which have tried unusual strategies to avoid the inevitable internet commenter pile-on—the likes of which caused Tropicana, Gap, and a handful of other companies to backtrack on new logos in the past. Chiquita Banana, for example, asked designers to submit their ideas and then invited the public to vote. Yahoo!, meanwhile, decided to flood the hate market with 29 bad logos, which will—in theory!—amplify the awesomeness of whatever it unveils tonight.
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