{"id":30,"date":"2013-10-15T12:09:40","date_gmt":"2013-10-15T19:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/anitafacundo\/?p=30"},"modified":"2013-10-26T12:12:08","modified_gmt":"2013-10-26T19:12:08","slug":"30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/anitafacundo\/2013\/10\/15\/30\/","title":{"rendered":"“From MEC to MEH…”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
(Left) Original MEC Logo, (Right) New MEC Logo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

In Vancouver 1971<\/a>, six mountaineer\u2019s came together and founded Mountain Equipment Co-Op (MEC)<\/a>. For those who are not familiar with MEC, it is a co-operative that sells outdoor recreation gear and clothing exclusively to its members.\u00a0 It is a retail store that strives to encourage and inspire Canadians to step outside and live active lifestyles.<\/p>\n

8 months ago, MEC decided to rebrand their logo. Instead of embracing their full name and original mountain symbol, MEC decided to reference themselves by the acronym \u201cMEC\u201d in simple, green letters.<\/p>\n

Immediately after MEC released the new logo, an intense debate exploded on MEC\u2019s Facebook page. After reading a couple of the comments<\/a> I noticed a quick pattern; MEC\u2019s members, especially their advocates, loved their original logo and are furious with the rebranding. Certain remarks that stood out were, “Your new logo looks like the Gap logo\u201d, \u201cIt says nothing about anything\u201d,\u00a0 \u201cOut go the hippies, in comes the corporates\u201d and \u201cMy reaction to “MEC” is “MEH”\u2026 it\u2019s just boring and uninspiring\u201d. I don\u2019t blame them. No one likes losing an attachment.<\/p>\n

So why did the rebranding occur? Was it necessary? Will this lose certain loyal members?<\/p>\n

In a CTV press release<\/a>, MEC\u2019s chief marketing officer Anne Donohoe claims it was time for a \u201cfacelift\u201d. Donohoe expressed that this new logo is adapting to the needs of its members and that this change will stay true to MEC\u2019s mission, \u201cto inspire Canadians to be active outdoors.”\u00a0 This doesn\u2019t make sense to me because by removing the mountain symbol, it takes away the only part of the logo that represented \u201cthe outdoors\u201d. If Donohoe states that the new logo is a response to \u201cshifting consumer needs,\u201d how does a logo of 3 green letters \u201cinspire Canadians to be active outdoors?\u201d\u00a0 I feel that many of us who look at the new logo, wonder how many other logo possibilities there are that would speak more to the uniqueness of MEC\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n

I understand that MEC is trying to adapt themselves to new target audiences. But realistically, how many of these new members would feel disclosed from the original logo? Turning their logo into a basic, GAP look-a-like design, turns MEC\u2019s brand to feel remotely inspiring or adventurous. All I get from the new logo is that MEC is reflecting the fact that they are turning into a huge retail giant.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  In Vancouver 1971, six mountaineer\u2019s came together and founded Mountain Equipment Co-Op (MEC). For those who are not familiar with MEC, it is a co-operative that sells outdoor recreation gear and clothing exclusively to its members.\u00a0 It is a retail store that strives to encourage and inspire Canadians to step outside and live active […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20097,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/anitafacundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/anitafacundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/anitafacundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/anitafacundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20097"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/anitafacundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/anitafacundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/anitafacundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/anitafacundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/anitafacundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/anitafacundo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}