We’ve all heard the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” From a marketing perspective, we know that choosing a logo is a serious undertaking as the symbol selected needs to be a visual representation of the brand’s core values, mission, and image. With all this in mind, it is beyond me how a professional design team could have possibly thought that the above logo would be a good representation of the Australian Women’s Network. 

The organization’s mission is to promote gender equality and support its’ members to succeed in their personal and professional lives. However, two months ago (March 2022), when they debuted their new logo with its’ unmistakable phallic appearance, patrons and trolls alike took to social media to question the sanity of the individuals who had approved the design.

The logo was retracted after all the backlash, but like everyone else, I have been left wondering why no one on the review team could have prevented it from being released in the first place. Situations like these are excellent opportunities to use focus groups -traditional or virtual to get honest feedback from the very people that a brand aims to engage. Hopefully, this will be the last public mistake that this organization makes regarding its brand image.