The Boston Consulting Group (now Boston Consulting Group), today launched a rebranding initiative, which includes a pretty significant logo change for the 55-year old firm, aimed at better reflecting where BCG is today. To discuss the rebranding and the logo, Consulting magazine caught up with Massimo Portincaso, Partner and Managing Director of the firm, to discuss all aspects of the initiative, including the massive effort from conception to design to roll out. Following an example set by Google a few years back, BCG set out to give the entire firm a unified look and feel. Portincaso led BCG through the entire rebranding process and discusses some of the finer points, including the look of the new logo and the decision to drop the "The" from the Boston Consulting Group brand.
Consulting: How did this rebranding come to be? Can you take me through the process?
Massimo: I would say this was more of an emergent rebranding rather than a top-down rebranding. Five years ago we had very different visual language, which was very traditional and related to the management consulting we did in the past. We started to change piece by piece all the different components of the BCG brand on a global scale—everything from our web presence all the way through to our PowerPoint presentations. BCG is a very different company than it was just five years ago and what was missing in this process was what happened with Google—bringing all those pieces together. So, at the end of this emergent process, we realized we were missing the capstone that would bring unify all the pieces. This wasn't change for the sake of change; we had changed the way we presented ourselves to the world and now, at the end of that journey, we are changing the logo. We are asking people to look at BCG in a whole new way.
Consulting: What would you say are some of the significant differences with the new brand and logo?
Massimo: Well, the logo is quite different, but as far as the branding there is a pretty big change, too. I don't know if you saw the movie "Facebook," but there's that part where they decide to drop the "The" from the brand name… Well, we're also dropping the "The" and the new brand is just Boston Consulting Group, which actually goes back to our roots because the firm used to be called Boston Consulting Group without the "The." That's a bit of a nod to our heritage. The new logo is, too. If you look at the logo from the 1980s, this new logo has a bit of similarity to that one.
Consulting: I know this is not just about a new logo and you've touched on this briefly, but hoping you can go into a little more detail. From a strategic perspective, what's behind the rebrand? What are attempting to signal to the market?
Massimo: It really signals that BCG is entering a new phase; it's a new BCG. And it's important to remember that this is not a statement of intention, but rather it's a statement of reality. It reflects where we are as a firm right now. It's a big difference. Strategically, it signals that it's not just BCG the management consulting firm, it's BCG and all the different components representing the 16,000 employees we have across 50 countries. We wanted the logo to represent that—to be more global, more modern, more connected and bolder; and I think we achieved that. I must say it has been well received internally and it has been tested and the feedback has been very positive. One takeaway, probably since it's such a departure, is that the logo really grows on you. People's first reaction in hesitant but they come back and say that they really, really like it. We do a lot of digital work but we're not a technology company, we're a consulting firm. This is what we were looking for—a logo that would stand the test of time and a logo that would last.
Consulting: From a logistics standpoint, how do you go about rolling this out firm wide and worldwide? It's a pretty massive effort, I would think.
Massimo: We're having many discussions about that with all of our leadership because as you point out, it is a massive effort. The way we are doing it is more organic; people will see the business advantages of the new brand and the new logo and they will make the change. Because it's so radical, it will undoubtedly speed up that process. You really can't confuse the old logo and the new one. It's not subtle; people will notice it. I suspect it will happen pretty quickly, but like I said, the logo reflects the new business approach, so it's the final step to a long process they've already been going through. As I said earlier, this really was part of an emergent process—one where we went inside and looked at our heritage and our purpose and our future—and all of this is the culmination of that process.
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