'Explore The New' by Lufthansa

'Explore The New' by Lufthansa

Who has the oldest airline logo in the World? The answer is Lufthansa, where the German architect and designer Otto Firle designed the iconic ‘flying crane in a circle’ logo in 1918 for Deutsche Luft- Reederei (DLR), Lufthansa’s predecessor.

The yellow we associate with the Lufthansa circle, was then added in the 1960s by graphic designer Otto “Otl” Aicher and students from his Gruppe E5 at the influential Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm.

The result is an iconic and much loved brand. So much so that there is a whole book devoted to its design language and iconography.

As SimpliFlying CEO Shashank Nigam pointed out in a ‘SimpliLive’ Show, that means that the Lufthansa logo is one of those timeless aviation liveries, sitting alongside the likes of KLM and Singapore Airlines. It symbolises trust and consistency. It also means any change is going to be controversial.

That change was officially announced on 7 February (but leaked well beforehand), when Lufthansa showed off the new livery in Frankfurt, to staff, journalists, bloggers and select social media influencers. The flying crane remains, but rather than a blue and yellow design, Lufthansa has gone (almost) all blue.

According to CEO Carsten Spohr, “Lufthansa has changed and is more modern and successful than ever. From now on, this will also be visible to the public through a new design.”

As well as removing yellow from the aircraft, the blue is a darker shade, and the underside of the aircraft is all white (as opposed to silver / grey at the moment). It will take seven years for all of Lufthansa’s fleet to reflect the new brand.

The removal of the yellow has of course been controversial. In his SimpliLive show, Shashank Nigam mentions that over 30% of airlines have a blue or part-blue brand, and so the yellow gave Lufthansa a certain amount of uniqueness.

In a Twitter poll, SimpliFlying subsequently found that ⅔ of participants identified as “team yellow” as opposed to “team blue”, with a number of respondents saying that Lufthansa was going ‘blue Qantas.’

Lufthansa’s reasoning is that blue apparently better reflects the airline’s premium positioning.

Lufthansa’s Corporate Designer Ronald Wild said in a launch video that “Lufthansa has been defined almost equally by the colours yellow and blue We knew that if we wanted to develop further in the premium direction, we would have to give more emphasis to one of the colours.” And so, yellow lost out.

However, CEO Carsten Spohr was also quick to point out that the yellow will still be present in some parts of the Lufthansa brand, in particular in airport signage. There is also a small amount of yellow on the aircraft themselves, for example as an ‘accent colour’ used on the aircraft doors.

This could in itself cause problems and the One Mile at a Time blog questioned whether the outcome is the worst of both worlds:

“You’d think a single, consistent logo for an airline would make sense. That’s why I find it weird that check-in counters will have a yellow and white logo, planes will have a blue and white logo, etc. Isn’t that unnecessarily complicated?”

To generate excitement and amplify the new brand, Lufthansa is using the hashtag #ExploreTheNew. It has also created an Explore the New website, with imagery and a social wall where fans are encouraged to post pictures using the hashtag.

At the time of writing (24 hours after the launch event), the social wall largely contains photos posted by social media influencers invited to the launch as well as staff photos, so it remains to be seen how this social wall will look as the campaign progresses (or indeed, the extent to which it is moderated).

The website itself includes a scrolling gallery of images and videos, including the story of the Lufthansa brand and a time-lapse film of an LH aircraft being repainted.

Whether you are a fan of the new brand or not, the website does a good job in conveying the ‘premium’ message with high quality imagery and videos. When we looked at it, we thought it was kind of micro-site Mercedes Benz would produce when unveiling a new luxury car. Another observation was that the style of the videos was reminiscent of the iPhone 7 launch.

As an exercise in story-telling it is excellent, and if you are going to make a major corporate announcement, this is the way to bring it to life.

Immediately after the event, the new livery (via an A321 aircraft) went on tour throughout airports in Germany, as well as European airports including Paris CDG and Milan Malpensa.

Finally, the new livery marks the kick-off of a new marketing campaign called “Say Yes to the World.” According to Lufthansa - “It questions familiar ways of thinking and habits. Lufthansa opens up the world to all explorers. With style, ambition and quality. With empathy for each individual. Reliable and trustworthy.”

We will no doubt be covering this new campaign in future issues as it takes shape.

Key Take-Away

‘Lufthansa Blue’ has provoked some strong reactions, but does it actually matter? Indeed, FastCoDesign questioned whether the new logo and design had meant that we had now reached “peak logo outrage.” The piece pointed out that the main criteria of a logo’s success is whether it is ubiquitous and recognised. “Our collective revulsion over a small change or redesign flies in the face of that truth, and ignores the ultimate context of branding: scale.” And scale is what Lufthansa has. Whatever the opinion is now, in seven years time when the whole fleet will have the new paint job, the current controversy will be a distant memory. What matters more is how Lufthansa chose to launch and unveil its new brand. The event featuring the company’s CEO, the subsequent tour of airports, the website, and the video and photography are a textbook example of how it should be done. It all very much shouts ‘premium.’ It tells a story. Manages to convey excitement without seeming flashy. For that reason, Lufthansa’s Explore the New is our cover story and campaign of the month.