BBC Two: new idents from Sunday 18 February

Well what do you expect if the BBC misappropriate our licence fee on an advertising agency? This vindicates concerns I had earlier in this thread. The suggested approach will mean every terrestrial channel is identical, except in name. This is not branding , it's blanding .

We keep hearing about how standing out from the rest is "more important than ever" so why are the marketing men (probably fast-track graduates with no experience of television) making their channels clones of each other?

Lambie-Nairn created the 2 and should naturally be in charge of this next stage of its development. Martin may well have cause to wonder what has happened to his baby.

Yawn... if these kinds of live action people idents had been prevalent 20-25 years ago, rather than the BBC1 mirror globe and the graphical =2= symbol, I can't imagine I would have become interested in television presentation at all. Oh for the old days...

Same here Robert!

Isn't that all taking a world record sized jump to conclusions?

We have had a fairly description of the basic idea behind the idents from a single source. While i'm not saying that source is incorrect, i'm also not saying that it is entirely representative of what we'll actually end up with.

While i'm fairly unimpressed with the description, i'll at least wait to damn those behind them until i've actually seen them.

I really don't understand what the problem is with an "advertising agency"?

They work in a very similar area to a traditional branding agency - in fact it is precisely because they are slightly different that they may be able to turn a rather dull sounding idea into something that actually works.

Channel 4 uses people idents, involving the 4 in its surroundings, so perhaps BBC Two doing it, may not be so bad. I think it will only work if the People are just doing normal things, and are not the focus. Like in Channel 4's Tokyo ident, the people are just walking around like normal, and the 4 becomes apparent.

It still sounds like a copycat idea, though I had a feeling this is what BBC2 would try.

Exactly.
The minor problem here is that your average BBC Two viewer is rather more perseptive, so doing the idents like Channel Four's whilst on the plus side,would look good and get away from the computer generated stuff of the past few years.

On the minus side, if you have the 'TWO' hidden in a scene only to slowly reveal itself, then some of your viewers would straight away think "Oh look, that's just like what happens on Channel Four with their logo" .
Thus any strong brand identity that you want to create for your channel is in one stroke, thrown away by being associated with a rival network in the mind of the viewer.

Not exactly what the client is paying the ad agency to do, really.

You need to remember that this is the agency that brought us the Guinness Horses, so have some faith...

I'll be content if the new look is an improvement on the existing set.

If however, it is worse, then I shall be hoping for Lambie-Nairn - who probably should've been working on this relaunch of the '2' anyway - to return to the agency roster and strengthen branding in the future.

Not sure if I understand the 'bringing channels' idents in line with each other' claim and how it will work across the BBC's 4 main channels...



Back in 2002, they were very much different ident-wise and it was the boxed logo that linked them together; and as it stands now, BBC3 isn't live action, while BBC4 has no single symbol or icon; and they both still carry the box (which will look more out of place when BBC2 changes no doubt - whatever happened to relaunching all channels at the same time?)

So in effect to bring them all in line, these two digital channels will also need a makeover, with BBC3 needing a complete change as it's currently animation-based; and I've heard nothing about these ones getting a refresh...

Six years on I'm still reeling as to how that came first in C4's 100 Greatest Ads - I'd never even seen the ad at the time! Still, I suppose Jonathan Glazer needed something to do once You Bet! was axed

I couldn't agree more - I'd never seen that advert and was shocked it came first in that C4 show. It's reaonably clever, but at the same time obvious - and it doesn't say "Guinness" to me - it says "aftershave" or "toilet cleaner"... I hated it.

No-one seems to mind the live action idents currently running on BBC2 Thursday nights.

The new ones sound pretty similar - people in scenes beside the '2' which is what the pedigree comedy ones are