Recent visitors to the Phoni Pharmaceuticals web page have been surprised to see that the familiar corporate “orange oval” logo has undergone a facelift.
“We felt it was time to re-examine our corporate image in the light of recent company history,” explains Jilly Jollie, Phoni’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications.
“Phoni’s original logo dates back to the eighties, when the company was a science-driven organisation with high ethical standards. Of course, that model is no longer relevant in today’s modern pharmaceutical marketplace,” Ms. Jollie observes. “More recently, our image has become that of a ruthless ‘slash and burn’ takeover specialist with a reputation as being ‘No.1 in corporate malfeasance’, a perception that some of our investors are uncomfortable with given the current unpopularity of corporate greed.”
“So we’ve decided to try and draw a line under our price-gouging, third-world outsourcing, employee-shafting, illegal marketing, disease-mongering, ghost-writing, clinical-trials-rigging, Medicaid-defrauding past, and instead try to look to a new compliant and ethical future. We were therefore keen to adopt a new logo to show our commitment to that vision.”
It was with this objective in mind that Phoni engaged the services of Tourette's, the infamous corporate makeover specialists.
“Our first task was to find out just what people thought of Phoni Pharmaceuticals,” said corporate image consultant, Tanya Upwoodly-Mobyle. “We spoke to hundreds of company employees, customers and executives, to try and find out just what the overall perception of Phoni’s image was in the minds of the people who know it.”
“We then took all of this feedback and shared it with our top advertising executives and graphic designers. After an intensive three-week creative brainstorming session in a luxury hotel in the Seychelles, the team managed to come up with a company legend that they felt truly captured the corporate essence of Phoni Pharmaceuticals...”
“Whilst we felt that the honesty behind this first effort was commendable, ‘honesty’ isn’t really a concept that Phoni embraces,” explains Phoni’s Jilly Jollie. “Sure, we’re keen to draw a line under our past behaviour, but not to the extent that we admit to any need to actually change it. All of our lying, bullying and law-breaking makes us far too much money for that.”
“What we really wanted was a new image that looks like we’ve changed things, but at the same time gives reassurance that it’s all really just business as usual…”
Tanya Upwoodly-Mobyle’s team were unfazed by the task. “After another six weeks intensive brainstorming in the Bahamas, we decided to adopt Phoni’s own approach to “evergreening” old, clapped-out ideas,” she recalls.
“After all, all Phoni does to squeeze more mileage out of its old products is to change the colour and shape of the pills and packaging, claim superiority over the original product and then charge five times the price. So we thought we’d do exactly the same...”
“We’re delighted with the result,” said Phoni’s Jillie Jollie. “The new logo is on the slide and there are one or two cosmetic changes, but otherwise everything’s just the same. This exactly reflects the company itself,” she observes.
Tourette’s are also satisfied with the outcome.
“We’ve managed to make buckets of money, just from a few clicks of a mouse in Paint Shop,” trilled Tanya Upwoodly-Mobyle. “$13 million in fact. This pharmaceutical corporate branding stuff is just money for old rope, isn’t it…?”
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