Scroll Top

Brand Strategy Marketing: Does Walmart Deserve Ridicule for Its Logo Refresh?

Brand Strategy Marketing: Does Walmart Deserve Ridicule for Its Logo Refresh?

Plus, 5 More Big-Brand Logo Launches Illustrate 2025 Design Trends

In early 2025, the public broadly mocked Walmart for its highly-publicized new brand strategy marketing effort. In its PR release for a modest refresh of its brand identity, Walmart gushed:

“Walmart Introduces Updated Look and Feel: A Testament to Heritage and Innovation…. Walmart is excited to announce a comprehensive brand refresh that reflects its evolution as a people-led, tech-powered omnichannel retailer. From its humble beginnings in Bentonville, Arkansas, in 1951, Walmart has grown into a global leader dedicated to helping people save money and live better.”

Take a look for yourself:

Brand Strategy Marketing: Does Walmart Deserve Ridicule for Its Logo Refresh?

While it’s true that the logo icon, wordmark and color updates were a good decision for today’s consumer sensibilities, Walmart’s excitement over the changes seemed a bit overwrought. I was surprised at this mild misstep, because Walmart is known for its marketing prowess, as Insight to Action published in “Accessible, Aspirational & Never Alienating: Unwrapping Walmart Brand Strategy Marketing.”

To investigate further if Walmart earned this backlash, I researched current logo design trends.

Brand Strategy Marketing:
2025 Trends in Logo Design

Well-known online printer Vista (owned by Cimpress) numbers its customers at 17 million companies worldwide. As a top printing choice for so many small-and-medium-sized brands, this company sees millions of logos every year. Going into the new year, Vista offers its “9 logo design trends for 2025.

  1. Mix and match type: Choosing different typefaces, font sizes and character weights that pleasingly contrast
  2. Subtle icons: Incorporating a simple illustrated element within a wordmark
  3. Etched emblems: Creating an intricate badge or shield that looks like woodcut art
  4. A touch of character: Quirky, standout designs that may feature a brand personality-driven character
  5. Elegant tilted type: Varying one typeface with selective use of italics or bold, often over the course of one word
  6. Fun and chunky: Sculpting letters out of objects instead of choosing a typeface
  7. Brilliant brushwork: A painted look that feels more human-crafted than computer-generated
  8. Waves and fades: Futuristic geometry, featuring smooth lines and gradients
  9. Sliced up: A minimalist approach, where slices are removed from symbols, leaving them angular, yet recognizable

These nine trends are a study in contrasts: about half of them involve futuristic minimalism, while the other half go for eclectic charm.

Along with Walmart, several other well-known brands incorporated logo redesigns into their brand strategy marketing over the past year. Let’s see how five of them follow the latest trends.

Brand Strategy Marketing Logo Redesign:
Jaguar Ejects the Cat

While Walmart’s brand strategy may be accessible and never alienating, luxury auto brand Jaguar is on the other end of the spectrum. Jaguar introduced completely overhauled brand strategy marketing in a December 2024 video titled, “Copy Nothing.” The brand claims:

“We’re here to delete ordinary. To go bold. To copy nothing.”

Rest assured, Jaguar’s new car lineup will still have four wheels. Here’s the new logo to go with this futuristic campaign:

Brand Strategy Marketing: Does Walmart Deserve Ridicule for Its Logo Refresh?

Clearly, Jaguar has chosen the minimalist path, removing its iconic cat from the picture. We see “mix and match type,” with both uppercase and lowercase letters. The original deep green is also gone. In this incarnation, there are red “waves and fades,” although I have also seen vivid pinks and yellows used. Jaguar is certainly on-trend for 2025’s logo expectations, although consumer feedback has been largely negative (For example, the YouTube comments under the release video are pretty brutal).

Brand Strategy Marketing Logo Redesign:
Kimberly-Clark, So Demure

Back to CPG brands, we witness another demure brand strategy marketing refresh with Kimberly-Clark’s logo. With brands like Huggies, Depends and Kleenex, most consumers use Kimberly-Clark products every day. Here’s how the company introduces its new identity on LinkedIn:

To usher in our new strategy, “Powering Care,” and next chapter of growth, we’re excited to share our new Kimberly-Clark logo and brand identity! As a 151-year-old company, we refreshed our look and became more modern. Here’s to another 151 years of fulfilling our purpose of Better Care for a Better World.”

Check out the changes:

Brand Strategy Marketing: Does Walmart Deserve Ridicule for Its Logo Refresh?

Kimberly-Clark is following the “subtle icons” trend by de-emphasizing its “CKC” illustration. Interestingly, the brand is bucking the italics trend, by removing italics. Also, we can see that Walmart and Kimberly-Clark basically switched blues, with both claiming that the move helps “modernize” the look.

Brand Strategy Marketing Logo Redesign:
Later Declutters Now

Later is a popular social marketing tool, allowing customers to manage their online presence from one app. It first came to prominence for its ability to schedule social posts for “later” instead of immediately. The brand’s previous logo had a pixelated design, evoking how customers could pull all the pieces of their online marketing together in one place. Check out the new incarnation.

Brand Strategy Marketing: Does Walmart Deserve Ridicule for Its Logo Refresh?

Later’s logo redesign is another example of “subtle icons.” There’s also a degree of “sliced up,” with the graphic element being abstract and angular.

Brand Strategy Marketing Logo Redesign:
Perkins Hearkens Back to a Time Before it Existed

When I first saw the new Perkins logo, it pleasantly reminded me of 1930s typefaces.

Brand Strategy Marketing: Does Walmart Deserve Ridicule for Its Logo Refresh?

Perkins opened its first restaurant in 1958, as a pancake house in Cincinnati, OH. So, I wondered why a restaurant with mid-century heritage was honoring the Great Depression in its logo. Designers cleverly hearkened back to that original pancake house sign, which put me in mind of the Mark Twain quote;

“When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it’s always 20 years behind the times.”

Whoever designed the original Perkins sign wasn’t looking to the future; they were copying the past. I’ve loved living in Cincinnati for nearly 20 years (But the natives still don’t consider me a local. Perhaps in a few more decades).

It just goes to show that everything old becomes new again, because the Perkins logo redesign appears fresh and inviting. It’s an example of the “mix and match type” and “fun and chunky” trends. You also see “waves and fades,” along with “elegant tilted type.” The logo achieves a pleasing mix of retro futurism.

Brand Strategy Marketing Logo Redesign:
Lamborghini Modernizes By Way of 1498

Let’s bookend these brand strategy marketing examples with another luxury car brand. Unlike Jaguar, Lamborghini didn’t jettison its spirit animal, but it did revitalize him.

Brand Strategy Marketing: Does Walmart Deserve Ridicule for Its Logo Refresh?

The classic bull received the “etched emblem” treatment, turning the ornate badge into a woodcut outline. There’s also a bit of “sliced up” element to this. The result certainly does feel more modern. I’m unsure if “woodcut” is the right look and feel for a luxury car brand. Who knows? Maybe Albrecht Dürer would have loved driving a Lamborghini (he completed his most famous woodcut, The Four Horsemen, from “The Apocalypse,” in 1498).

But What About Walmart?

So, to answer our title question: does Walmart deserve ridicule for its brand strategy marketing refresh? After reviewing our five other logo redesign examples, I think Walmart could have done a lot worse. Evolving a brand identity slowly helps customers continue to quickly identify the brand. Also, consider the effort required to replace signage at the company’s 10,000+ stores. With this logo refresh, stores late on the transition schedule won’t look terribly outdated.

Walmart is not a revolutionary brand, so it wouldn’t benefit from revolutionary logo changes. Perhaps the fault lies with how Walmart rolled out its new logo, with great fanfare and grandiose pronouncements. The C-suite is understandably jazzed about the update, but their minor fault was assuming the rest of the world cared as much about Walmart’s logo as they did. After all the recent public teasing, I’m sure they have learned their lesson for next time.

Insight to Action is LA’s premier market research and business growth consulting firm. We work with brands large and small. Visit our Brand Strategy Resources for more analysis from experts. Or, meet the team at an Open Office Hours event.