The Honda logo is undergoing significant changes for the first time since 1981. As part of the reveal of its new Series Zero EV models at CES, Honda showed off a new “H mark” that features a simplified shape and a more modern appearance. The company says the logo is meant specifically to show its commitment to EVs, and said that it will first appear on “next-generation EVs,” including the production versions of these Series Zero vehicles scheduled to arrive in 2026.
The new logo does away with the squircle-shaped surround for the H, meaning it’s far simpler in execution than the badge we’ve been seeing on Honda models for some time now. The H itself is also wider and more sharply angled, which Honda says is meant to resemble two outstretched hands.
It seems that we’ll have to wait a few years for the first new model to feature the logo, as we expect it will be the production version of the Series Zero Saloon concept that’s coming in 2026. In the meantime, Honda’s new 2024 Prologue electric SUV, which is based on a GM platform, will still use the old version of the logo. We’re also not sure whether any non-EV Hondas will eventually adopt the new H, but Honda has previously laid out plans for EVs and fuel-cell vehicles to make up 40 percent of its new-vehicle sales by 2030, 80 percent by 2035, and 100 percent by 2040.
Perrier, a brand synonymous with bubbly delight, is ringing in its 160th birthday with a fresh twist on its renowned green bottle. Dubbed Perrier+Starck, this limited-edition reincarnation will make its global debut this October. The mastermind behind this reimagining? None other than visionary French industrial architect and designer Philippe Starck.
Rewind to 1906: St John Harmsworth, the British brainchild of the Perrier brand, sculpted the signature green bottle, taking cues from Indian juggling clubs—a nod to his daily workout regime. Over time, the bottle’s elegant curves have graced the royal tables at Buckingham Palace and inspired striking brand imagery, all the while retaining its quintessential shape, turning it into a global emblem.
However, Starck’s iteration is not just a makeover, but an ode to the bottle’s legacy. He’s the first creator called in by the brand to redefine the bottle’s silhouette, says Perrier. Still, even with all this freedom in his hands, he chose to honor its shape.
Instead, he reimagines its contours with tactile, horizontal etchings, drawing parallels with Perrier’s vivacious effervescence and its enigmatic blend of water and bubbles. In Starck’s hands, the Perrier vessel transforms into a work of art that marries its traditional aesthetic with innovative allure.
The designer’s inspiration? Fresnel’s optical lens. Developed in 1823 by French engineer Augustin Fresnel, this lens boasts a unique pattern of carved ridges, channeling rays to enhance the light’s consistency and intensity. Celebrating its 200th anniversary this year, the Fresnel lens not only revamped maritime signaling but continues to impact today’s technology, from projectors to solar cells.
“As a child, I always used to be afraid that the bottle would slip from my hands,” Starck recalls. “I would clutch it very tightly, to the point where it hurt. This is why I chose this striated pattern. The bottle clings to me, I cling to the bottle: another form of play. And you’ll see it, in this new bottle, the bubbles are absolutely out of this world.”
The health care giant said Thursday that it will replace the well-known signature script it has used since 1887 with a modern look that reflects its sharpened focus on pharmaceuticals and medical devices.
The original script — based on co-founder James Wood Johnson’s signature — will still be seen for now on consumer products like baby shampoo from Kenvue, a new company recently spun off from J&J.
Johnson & Johnson itself narrowed its focus to pharmaceuticals and medical devices. The new look, which includes a different shade of red, aims to recognize J&J’s shift into a “pure play health care company,” said Vanessa Broadhurst, a company executive vice president.
The signature logo was “one of the longest-used company emblems in the world,” J&J declared in a 2017 website post.
But it started showing its age in an era of texting and emojis.
Many children no longer learn to write cursive in school, noted marketing consultant Laura Ries. People may recognize the signature, but they weren’t necessarily reading it, she said. The new logo, she said, is easier to process.
“Because it’s easier, it almost even draws your attention to it,” said Ries, who wasn’t involved in the logo change.
The Mexico-based restaurant that made headlines for its similarities to In-N-Out Burger restaurants has changed its name, SFGate reported.
The restaurant, formally known as In-I-Nout, has changed its name to Sofi’s Burger, according to its Instagram account.
Pictures on the restaurant’s Instagram page still show red trays plated with grilled topped burgers and fries covered in special sauce, similar to food served at In-N-Out restaurants. However, some photos also show other food offerings that In-N-Out doesn’t sell, like chicken nuggets.
When news first broke about the imitation restaurant, the real In-N-Out didn’t seem too happy with the surprise pop-up eatery, telling KTLA that they are unable to comment “due to ongoing litigation” – signaling that the restaurant was pursuing legal action against the copycat.
In-N-Out Burger opened in 1948 as a tiny stand at Francisquito and Garvey avenues in Baldwin Park. Harry and Esther Snyder, the company’s founders, are credited with inventing the world’s first drive-thru with a two-way speaker box that same year.
For years, the restaurants could only be found in the Los Angeles area, but company officials slowly began expanding its footprint to other regions across the state and nearby states.
As of 2023, the company has 385 locations across the western half of the nation. In January, the company announced that it would open restaurants and a corporate office in Tennessee by 2026.
Twitter’s abrupt rebrand to X came out of the blue on July 23, causing widespread confusion among its 240 million global users. But the reasons, which Elon Musk had hinted at last year, eventually came to the surface.
The most succinct explanation came from Musk himself in the Tweet (or is that Xeet?) below. In it, he explains that X Corp (the company formerly known as Twitter) bought the social network “as an accelerant for X, the everything app.”
As Twitter moves towards that lofty goal, Musk says the Twitter name no longer makes sense – particularly with X Corp planning to add “the ability to conduct your entire financial world” on the app “in the months to come”.
Twitter’s abrupt rebrand to X came out of the blue on July 23, causing widespread confusion among its 240 million global users. But the reasons, which Elon Musk had hinted at last year, eventually came to the surface.
The most succinct explanation came from Musk himself in the Tweet (or is that Xeet?) below. In it, he explains that X Corp (the company formerly known as Twitter) bought the social network “as an accelerant for X, the everything app.”
As Twitter moves towards that lofty goal, Musk says the Twitter name no longer makes sense – particularly with X Corp planning to add “the ability to conduct your entire financial world” on the app “in the months to come”.
The X app and website are still, on the surface, effectively Twitter in more boring clothes. It’s still a horribly addictive place to spout opinions, observe flame wars, and get your hit of the latest news, memes and weird viral trends. But under the hood, there is almost constant change. Also, Elon Musk has turned Twitter’s old verification system on its head.
As you can see from X’s official list of changes by month, there have been dozens of changes since November 2022. That’s not including all of the many under-the-hood algorithm tweaks.
Most recently, on July 25, X Blue subscribers (who pay from $8 / £9.60 / AU$13 per month or $84 / £100.80 / AU$135 per year), were given the ability to download videos from X (below). Hilariously, subscribers have also given the option to hide their blue verification ticks, suggesting that the ticks are far from a badge of honor.
Elon Musk has been pretty clear that he wants X, or what was formerly Twitter, to become “the everything app”. But what does that mean? The closest example is WeChat in China, which combines instant messaging, social media and mobile payments in one app. WeChat currently has over a billion monthly active users.
Whether or not it’s possible to create a WeChat rival outside China remains to be seen, but it’s likely to be extremely difficult. For a start, there are antitrust laws in the US that clamp down on monopolies, as Amazon is currently discovering with the FTC (even if it seems likely that Amazon will escape calls for it to be broken up).
But Elon Musk and X Corp are certainly going to try to turn X into an equivalent of WeChat. During the rebrand, Musk said: “In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world.”
Toyota Motor plans to discontinue sales of the Camry sedan in the Japanese market, focusing on countries where the automaker’s 43-year-old flagship model remains popular.
Toyota has notified Japanese dealerships that it will cease production of the Camry for domestic customers at the end of the year. Production will continue for exports.
Domestic sales will end in phases, and Toyota already has halted taking most new orders. New Camry models under development will be sold exclusively to foreign markets.
The Camry, whose name comes from the Japanese word for “crown,” is manufactured mainly in the U.S., China and the Tsutsumi Plant in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture. Like the Corolla, the sedan is Toyota’s global strategic car.
Toyota has sold about 1.3 million Camrys in Japan since the vehicle debuted in 1980. The sedan retails domestically between 3.49 million yen and 4.68 million yen ($26,400 to $35,450).
The model sells in over 100 countries, with more than 21 million units purchased cumulatively through the end of 2022, data from Toyota and automotive information provider MarkLines shows. Toyota fully redesigned the Camry and released the current 10th-generation model in 2017.
The Camry is especially popular in the U.S., where more than 13 million units have sold. American consumers favor the Camry for its reliability, ease of operation and roomy interior.
The Camry ranked as the top-selling passenger vehicle in the U.S. for 15 straight years through 2016. It is known as a go-to model for the relatively high resale value it commands in the used car market.
In China and Southeast Asia, the Camry is seen as an aspirational car for its high-end image.
The Toyota RAV4 snatched the U.S. sales crown from the Camry in 2017, as sport utility vehicles have taken off in recent years.
But the Camry still enjoys steady demand, as global sales of the sedan last year totaled around 600,000 units.
Japan is a different story, however. Fewer than 6,000 Camrys sold in the market last year, due partly to the semiconductor shortage. SUVs and minivans have become more popular in Japan to hurt demand for sedans. Last year, Nissan Motor ended production of the Fuga and Honda Motor terminated the Legend.
The Camry shares similar designs and customer demographics to the all-new Toyota Crown, which launched last year. Toyota apparently has determined that the Camry has completed its role in Japan and will concentrate on tailoring the sedan for the international market.
If you haven’t heard already, Nokia is dialing down on its position as a mobile phone manufacturer. To mark its pivot, the company has adopted a dramatic new logo, its first brand identity transformation in decades.
The Finnish tech firm says the fresh wordmark—an abstract emblem with negative space at the front, middle, and tail—represents a more “energized” and “dynamic” Nokia. The overhaul includes an expanded color palette that goes spectrums beyond the singular ‘Yale blue’.
Well, this “dynamic” look has energized the people too, somewhat. Consumers always have something to say when a company introduces a new logo, and Nokia’s revamp is no different.
A stream of jokes on social media insinuates that it’s a good thing Nokia has been around since 1865, because people would have a hard time deciphering its name had it been new.
DID YOU KNOW: the new Nokia logo pays tribute to its mobile phone heritage by stylizing the “N” into a trendline graph of Nokia’s market share in phones pic.twitter.com/M2uI3P9iG2
The Czech Republic’s new name rolls off the tongue more easily. It now wants to be known as Czechia, though it will still keep the longer form for various scenarios.
To be clear, the terms ‘Czechia’ and ‘Czech Republic’ have been in use interchangeably in an official capacity since 2016. However, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the nation will henceforth only use the Czech Republic designation for formal contexts, such as on official government documents, embassy relations, and legal correspondence.
Meanwhile, Czechia will from now on be the preferred name for more general and casual settings. You’ll see it across literary works, newspapers, advertising signs, and in instances where the country is being represented in the fields of culture, sports, and science. International committees or politicians might even choose this name to appear more legible “and less distant” on official marketing and meeting collaterals.
In line with the transition, the Czech Tourism Board has rebranded to become VisitCzechia. Its new, more readable logo illustrates why the nation is putting so much weight on a name change.
Czechia’s Olympic team has already gone ahead to identify itself as ‘Czechia’, printing the shorter moniker across jerseys and merchandise.
Uber Eats has enlisted Kris and Kendall Jenner to help launch the brand’s new positioning as it transitions away from its long-running ‘Tonight I’ll be eating positioning”.
The delivery platform, which launched in Australia in 2016, has enlisted the Jenners, along with a handful of Aussie celebrities, to showcase the brand’s expanded delivery offering, which now includes food, groceries, alcohol and more.
The new brand platform ‘Get almost almost anything’ aims to highlight the expanded service while acknowledging that Uber Eats still can’t deliver some things.
The campaign, which Special Group created in collaboration with Hello Social and MediaCom, features the brand’s trademark mix of celebrities employing self-deprecating humour.
Andy Morley, director of marketing at Uber ANZ, said: “This year we will continue to deepen our get “anything” offering across Uber Eats – building on our already rich range of restaurants, greengrocers, supermarkets, fishmongers, butchers, florists, to add even more retail items. While takeaway food will remain a hallmark, as our selection deepens and evolves we believe it’s time for a new brand platform to capture that. Get almost, almost anything absolutely does that job for us.”
Julian Schreiber, CCO & Partner of Special, said, ‘Being confident enough to discuss what you can’t do is a great way to create entertaining cut through about what you can do, particularly when it’s a huge new diverse offering. It delivers the message but also makes fun of all the over promises that marketing is constantly guilty of.”
The campaign comes as Australia’s food and grocery delivery market undergoes significant changes as it matures. Last year, British-owned delivery giant, Deliveroo, pulled out of the Australian market after six years in operation, citing “challenging economic conditions”. Meanwhile, food delivery service VOLY also withdrew from the market in November, blaming economic uncertainty.
The high concentration of big players in the Australian market has created a competitive landscape. Figures from last year revealed Uber Eats remained the market leader with around 53% market share, ahead of rival Menulog at 20%. Deliveroo held about 12% share, which is believed to have been shared among rivals, including Door Dash and HungryPanda.
Research from Roy Morgan revealed over 7 million Australians use food delivery services, which equates to almost one-third (33.4%) of the population aged 14-plus; this has increased from 3.6 million in 2020. According to the same research, Uber Eats is used by 3.5 million Australians, up from 2.3 million in 2020, confirming its position as the clear market leader.
It’s a position this latest campaign aims to solidify as the brand showcases its ability to deliver more than takeaway meals.
M&M’s is launching woke ‘all-female’ packs to celebrate female empowerment and attempt to shake things up in a continued shift toward progressive branding.
Mars, M&M’s parent company, debuted the feminist candy wrappers earlier this week, exclusively featuring the company’s three female mascots: green, brown and the newly-introduced purple.
The all-female package – upside down, to show how powerful women have ‘flipped the status quo’ – will be the first time the brown and green M&Ms have been featured together since a viral tweet from 2015 sparked rumors they were a lesbian couple.
The tweet contained a picture of the two characters holding hands on the beach, posted just two days after the Supreme Court effectively legalized gay marriage.
In fact, a search for the two characters in the notorious fan fiction site Archive Of Our Own produces 11 different results. The green M&M supposedly posted the tweet herself, writing: ‘It’s rare Ms. Brown and I get to spend time together without some colorful characters barging in.’
Mars has shifted the M&M’s brand in recent years multiple times in attempts to appear more progressive, with new CEO Poul Weihrauch looking to continue the trend.
They debuted ‘Purple’ – the first ever female peanut M&M spokescandy, who has been designed to represent acceptance and inclusivity and is ‘quirky, confident and authentic’.
More than 10 million fans voted to add the color to the confectionary’s current rainbow in May, beating aqua and pink.
Purple’s arrival was announced with ‘I’m Just Gonna Be Me,’ a new promotional song and music video, which launched on Tuesday.
Jane Hwang, global VP at Mars Wrigley said: ‘There is so much about our new spokescandy that people can relate to and appreciate, including her willingness to embrace her true self – our new character reminds us to celebrate what makes us unique.’
Purple joins the legendary cast of M&M’s characters, who were given a refresh with updated looks and more nuanced personalities back in January.
The iconic M&M characters – ubiquitous in commercials for the chocolate candies for decades – are getting a makeover that the company claimed will fit them in a ‘more dynamic, progressive world.’
The changes, which took effect immediately, gives the characters a more modern look to emphasize characters’ ‘personalities.’
The biggest changes appear to be to the two female M&M’s, the green and brown ones.
Mars, the maker of the candies, has been criticized in the past for making the green M&M too sexy, and either pushing a rivalry or a possible flirtation with the brown M&M.
The solution appears to be the green M&M losing her stiletto boots in favor of sneakers and the brown M&M wearing slightly lower heels than before to what Mars spokespersons called a ‘professional height.’
Mars wants the green M&M to be ‘better represented to reflect confidence and empowerment, as a strong female, and known for much more than her boots.’
As far as the relationship between the green and brown M&M’s, it will be based on the two ‘together throwing shine and not shade,’ as a reaction to how the two have been at odds at times in promotional material.
Each M&M has been given a Q&A to explain their new characters on the candy’s website, in which the brown M&M claims to be ‘not bossy, just the boss.’
Mars is also doubling down on the anxious orange M&M, whom the company believes is ‘one of the most relatable characters with Gen-Z, the most anxious generation.’
The orange M&M previously wore his shoes untied, but now will have them tied in an effort to represent his cautious nature, according to Mars.
The red M&M – voiced by cartoon icon Billy West in commercials and often vacillating between leader and bully toward the other M&M’s – will be adjusted to be more kind to his fellow characters.
The yellow M&M, classically dim-witted, appears to remain so. He once was quoted saying that the first thing he would do if today was his last day ever is ‘wake up.’
Mars hopes these changes will show the importance of ‘self-expression and power of community.’
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