Originally Posted by
dmurphynj
Had this been complete, I would've completely agreed with you. But it wasn't. (and again, I'm not saying United wasn't prudent - surely they were.). And I do love Pentagram's work - it really was a "complete" branding.
But being objective for a moment - you had one company with a mish-mash of logos, signage, liveries and branding. And one which was ruthlessly consistent, for better or worse.
They chose consistent. And I don't think anyone could ever convince me that cost wasn't the overriding factor.
One fleet (CO) had planes with recent paint, all in good condition.
The other (UA) had at least 3 different liveries, all in various states of disrepair. Some worse than others, but as a whole, the fleet was looking very tired.
If they had chosen, say, Rising Blue -- both the UA and CO fleets would've needed a full tip-to-tail repaint.
By choosing the CO logo, they could repaint the UA fleet, and just change the lettering on the CO fleet. Saving a pile of cash. And keeping those CO planes out of service a lot less. (Winding the clock back, CO was known for a very very high fleet utilization ...)
Same with signage and gates and such - we see lots of examples where the word "Continental" was scraped off, and United put in place, but the rest of the branding remains the same.
I'm convinced it was primarily a cost move. Keeping the CO logo and changing the lettering was an immediate-cost-savings move. And - let's be frank - would picking the tulip increase sales? I doubt it.
Many of the CO planes got full repaints. You also had to change over everything that said United and Continental, vs just the Continental things. I don’t know what 3rd livery you’re referring to, there was just the Rising Blue and remaining Battleships by the time of the merger. And in the year and a half prior to the merger, they upped the painting significantly and had planes in the booth when the merger was announced.
As for signs, the vast majority of the network had the Pentagram designed branding. You may have seen an old sign in a random spot somewhere, but the majority of it was current. All of the hubs had current signage and even got new jetbridge signs in early 2010. CO didn’t have a hodge podge because the people in charge of their marketing were incompetent and thought their stale, lame brand needed no update. They were badly wrong
It was never about cost. It was ego and to send a message.