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Old Jun 27, 2016, 10:21 am
  #1  
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A New United Brand?

http://themichaelist.blogspot.com/20...ted-brand.html

Obviously, this is speculation. But I do agree that there has been a slow change in branding, colors etc. Lots less use of the gold and more shades of blue for example. I think there will be a new livery in a few years, but I imaging they will keep the globe as it is very prominent in every facet of design.
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Old Jun 27, 2016, 11:19 am
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If Oscar were to do this, he would lose some trust in my book.

This would show that funds (painting hundreds of planes and more) are going to the completly wrong place. Once UA is an excellent airline with an ontime preformance of 90% throughout the year, and they consistently are first in customer satisfaction scores. THEN we can bring up the topic of rebranding, but for now they need to focus on fixing the old before they can announce something completely new.

Last edited by WineCountryUA; Jun 27, 2016 at 11:23 am Reason: Discuss the issues, not the posters
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Old Jun 27, 2016, 12:50 pm
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Originally Posted by Seby12
If Oscar were to do this, he would lose some trust in my book.

This would show that funds (painting hundreds of planes and more) are going to the completly wrong place. Once UA is an excellent airline with an ontime preformance of 90% throughout the year, and they consistently are first in customer satisfaction scores. THEN we can bring up the topic of rebranding, but for now they need to focus on fixing the old before they can announce something completely new.
I remember when UA was working on its app, users here were saying, "fix the website, then worry about the app."

But one doesn't necessarily negate the other. Both are important.

When it comes to rebranding, it's highly important to evaluate every few years. One might argue that s rebrand should precede investment in other areas - to show the public some low hanging fruit.
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Old Jun 27, 2016, 1:32 pm
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I think it's premature to introduce a new brand. I hope that UA has a renaissance, one where satisfaction ratings are rising and reputation is rising. In those circumstances it would be great to introduce a new brand: conversely if done now, it's quite likely that the new brand will be tarnished with the overwhelmingly negative current UA reputation.
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Old Jun 27, 2016, 1:51 pm
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Given how tightly integrated the globe branding is in the new Polaris product this seems quite fanciful to me. The two reasonable bits of "evidence" cited are a job posting (the company is going to have/need branding folks on staff no matter what) and a reply from the twitter team. Neither of those is particularly compelling IMO.
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Old Jun 27, 2016, 2:10 pm
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Originally Posted by Seby12
If Oscar were to do this, he would lose some trust in my book.

This would show that funds (painting hundreds of planes and more) are going to the completly wrong place. Once UA is an excellent airline with an ontime preformance of 90% throughout the year, and they consistently are first in customer satisfaction scores. THEN we can bring up the topic of rebranding, but for now they need to focus on fixing the old before they can announce something completely new.
This would seem an impossible standard...what airline is 90% on time year around- Hawaiian? Are they consistently in first with customer satisfaction? None of those criteria apply to any airline that I am aware of, so no one should ever change?

Making such unseen standards is destructive to any discussion. I am not in favor of re-branding, but I am in favor of reasonable discussion.
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Old Jun 27, 2016, 2:17 pm
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The new brand is the 'hemisphere'

http://www.priestmangoode.com/projec...-cabin-lounge/

"Forward wall featuring United’s new ‘hemisphere’ signature pattern, alongside the new United Polaris brand identity."

Instead of a big bang, everything is evolving toward that. Which is basically no more gold or grey and addition of more subtle globe cues.

At some point the livery will probably refresh without the gold and grey, but that's a ways off.

Think of the way Delta evolved the widget.
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Old Jun 27, 2016, 2:31 pm
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Originally Posted by lhrsfo
I think it's premature to introduce a new brand. I hope that UA has a renaissance, one where satisfaction ratings are rising and reputation is rising. In those circumstances it would be great to introduce a new brand: conversely if done now, it's quite likely that the new brand will be tarnished with the overwhelmingly negative current UA reputation.
I'm not a marketing guy but I would think this is true. If the rebranding effort is not supported by a better customer experience, then the rebranding effort is probably going to sound flat. In fact that's basically what happened with the whole "Flyer Friendly" tagline, no?
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Old Jun 27, 2016, 2:34 pm
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I hope not, air canada rouge was awful enough for me it was one of the reasons that I switched to united.
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Old Jun 27, 2016, 2:39 pm
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Originally Posted by Nimitz
I hope not, air canada rouge was awful enough for me it was one of the reasons that I switched to united.
I don't think anyone is speaking of a new airline, but rather "branding" as in logo, paint scheme, etc.
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Old Jun 27, 2016, 4:02 pm
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I think it would be foolish to create a new brand now. They just repainted hundreds of planes during the UA/CO merger. When those planes need to be repainted, then maybe...

Slowly incorporating more blue and less gold is probably just a way of creating their own unique identify. UA probably had a survey/had a designer decide that the blue was more appealing.

I think if UA does change the livery, it will be a small change. AA changed it's look because it looked like a 50s retro livery. I am guessing a bigger globe (so more zoomed in) on the tail and possibly a different underbelly?
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Old Jun 27, 2016, 4:23 pm
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Originally Posted by DA201
I think it would be foolish to create a new brand now. They just repainted hundreds of planes during the UA/CO merger. When those planes need to be repainted, then maybe...

Slowly incorporating more blue and less gold is probably just a way of creating their own unique identify. UA probably had a survey/had a designer decide that the blue was more appealing.

I think if UA does change the livery, it will be a small change. AA changed it's look because it looked like a 50s retro livery. I am guessing a bigger globe (so more zoomed in) on the tail and possibly a different underbelly?
I could see a new livery being done in 3-4 years with a bigger emphasis on blue. I believe Delta went through liveries every 5 years at one point and it is important to really emphasize the new UA after Oscar's changes go into effect. I don't see a full on rebranding with a new logo any time soon. I think the branding is getting better, but the new livery doesn't quite match.
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Old Jun 27, 2016, 4:29 pm
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I don't think this story has any credibility. This guy is a wingnut self-professed avgeek who only flies United (and seemingly only Boeing too), and I think he's just trying to read into something that's not there.

UA already hired PriestmanGoode to refresh the brand, and I think what we saw in the Polaris introduction is the extent of how the airline's visual identity will change.
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Old Jun 27, 2016, 11:17 pm
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Originally Posted by char777
I don't think this story has any credibility. This guy is a wingnut self-professed avgeek who only flies United (and seemingly only Boeing too), and I think he's just trying to read into something that's not there. ...
Seems per speculation But great click-bait.
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Old Jun 28, 2016, 10:29 am
  #15  
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As noted already, shareholders (and I suspect employees) would not be happy to see money wasted on repainting several hundred aircraft. Interiors may reflect slight variations of the current colour scheme (Polaris has focused on various shades of the blue, I suspect economy remakes might well highlight the gray), but the blue, white and gray with the gold globe (and gold swoosh on the 787) is pretty distinctive and hardly worth tampering with. The gray has been understated, though retained on the lower fuselage as the raw metal finish (that AA used to use full fuselage) is no longer possible with composite airframes so painting or finishing of some sort is required).
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