Newer logo to be phased in for Fonterra

The new Fonterra logo.

Fonterra is taking a visibly brighter approach to corporate self-promotion.

But dairy farmers can relax: the co-op says it is not splashing out on an expensive new PR campaign at a time when the forecast payout is lower.

Fonterra has had a long-standing "corporate" logo for things like letterheads and milk tankers and a more recently developed Fonterra Brands logo for use on consumer products.

Now it has just begun a three-year programme to phase out the corporate logo and only use the brands one on everything. It follows positive consumer feedback about the brands logo - with its "Dairy for Life" strapline.

The company says the old logo won't be ditched and replaced immediately at huge cost. It will be phased in as items displaying it are used up or signs are replaced as part of routine maintenance.

Mark Wynne, Fonterra Brands managing director New Zealand and international, said the co-op was very cost conscious at the moment and there was to be no "big bang" launch of the brands logo on everything right away.

Staff around the world had been told: "There's no rush to get this out the door ... but as things come up for natural renewal please change to the new format.

"It will look a little bit less than perfect ... because we'll have the two formats for a period of three years."

Wynne said projecting the Fonterra image more on its products worldwide was part of a strategy to build stronger consumer loyalty to the co-op's brand, in much the same way that Gillette and Nestle leverage their generic brands.

On whether phasing out the old logo was a waste of the money spent developing it, Wynne did not believe the design costs would have been significant. "The logo, frankly, is a scribble on a piece of paper." He estimated the costs would have been in the tens of thousands of dollars.