Featured cases

2007


1974

Professor Warren Johnson founded the company in 1885 to manufacture his invention, the electric room thermostat. Today its newly named "Building Efficiency" business has grown from that seed, while its "Power Solutions" (think batteries) and "Automotive Experience" (think car interiors) businesses have been added. And it is big now, and global (140,000 employees, only 2,500 at the Milwaukee base). 

But in January 2006, the company was feeling misunderstood and underappreciated... coldly competent, where it sought to be open and approachable; boring, where it sought emotional resonance. Its logo, a wordmark with cascading O's, had been designed in 1974 to express transition from the mechanical to the computer age but now just felt tired... a drag, not a driver. So management retained Lippincott for a brand review.

Lippincott's consultants established the brand basics, articulating a corporate brand platform that employees as well as customers could respect, a platform convening and cohering these disparate businesses in commonly understood functional and social purposes and in a shared positioning:  "Johnson Controls is the global market leader in integrating technologies, products and services that redefine the relationships between people and their surroundings. Our market insight enables us to anticipate marketplace needs and provide practical, eco-friendly solutions. By understanding the changes that affect how we live, work and travel, we help create smart environments that are more comfortable, efficient, safe, and sustainable."

Lippincott's designers then provided a logo (whose wordmark would make "Johnson" the hero rather than "Controls"), featuring a symbol they would call the "open globe."  They felt  ideas of openness and global reach, and the desired emotional impact, could not be achieved through type alone, thus the symbol.

There's a tagline too, "Ingenuity Welcome," in addition to the three unit names (to be communicated as "businesses," never Divisions or Companies). Their purpose is to help redefine the company's industry as well as its parts. The comprehensive visual system features a system of shapes which derive from various products, plus a palette and special typography.

The rebranding was first rolled out to employees over six months, in a slow-reveal campaign which began with culture, purpose and positioning messages, building toward the October 1 public launch.

Lippincott (NY)

Submitted by: Tony Spaeth, 3/10/2007
Status: Estimated by Tony Spaeth
Category: General Industrials
Country (HQ): United States