Pepsi’s new logo reignites debate about agencies not getting credit for creative work

Pepsi unveiled its new electric black-and-blue logo with much fanfare last month, sparking the usual back-and-forth debate among designers and laypeople over its appeal. But an even bigger debate is bubbling up within the design community over what the beverage giant didn’t reveal about who was behind the logo. Pepsi largely credited an in-house team for the new logo, but originally neglected to mention any of the external design firms and agencies that had a hand in crafting the logo, igniting irritation on the part of particularly young designers who worked on the redesign and were not given credit. Creative agency Mrs&Mr was one such agency that had a heavy hand in designing the logo, but received no credit when Pepsi first announced it, two people close to the matter told Ad Age. A spokesperson for Mrs&Mr declined to comment. Read more: Pepsi execs explain the logo redesign Logo and font designer Ian Brignell, founder of IB Type, wrote on LinkedIn that he, too, had a hand in crafting Pepsi's new logo. Another person close to the matter confirmed Brignell was involved in the lettering and other aspects of the logo, but Pepsi did not give him credit. Brignell did not return a request for comment. “I am proud to have helped contribute to the redesign of the iconic Pepsi wordmark,” Brignell wrote on LinkedIn. “It was a pleasure working with the PepsiCo Design & Innovation team to help bring the final details of the design to life.” Pepsi did send an updated statement to Ad Age a day after the logo was revealed that gave a slight nod to Mrs&Mr, but the two people close to the matter said it was not a complete credits list and did not fully illustrate how much the shop did in creating the logo. The statement read: “This was conceived, designed and led internally by Mauro [Porcini, PepsiCo’s chief design officer] and his team at the PepsiCo Design & Innovation Center and was several years in the making. Given the scale of this project, multiple partners were brought in at various stages. Most recently, Pepsi consulted Mrs&Mr.” Industry professionals aware of Mrs&Mr's work on the logo took to LinkedIn to give the shop more proper credit. “Incredible!!” Gopuff Head of Brand Marketing Jessica Lauria wrote on LinkedIn. “I can only imagine how exciting (and terrifying) it would [be] to redesign a classic and iconic brand like Pepsi. Only Mrs & Mr could approach this with so much boldness and simplicity.” Ad Age Breakout Brand Leaders New award honors the people behind emerging brands Enter here After these posts started circulating, Yasmin Grant, head of communications and advertising for PepsiCo’s new lemon-lime soda, Starry, congratulated Mrs&Mr in a post about the new logo at her sister brand. Grant had also credited all of the agency partners, which included Mrs&Mr, in the launch of Starry in a January LinkedIn post. “Not Starry news, but it’s the name on the door!” Grant wrote about the Pepsi logo. “Gotta keep things fresh. Great job Pepsi team and our Mrs&Mr friends.” Also read: Designers react to Pepsi's new logo Porcini also previously told Ad Age that an internal team led the design work, but it also consulted with various outside agencies to validate ideas, without naming them specifically. “The development of a new logo and visual identity for a brand as iconic as Pepsi was a massive undertaking by the PepsiCo Design & Innovation team that took many years,” a Pepsi spokeswoman said. “Of course, over that time we partnered with a variety of agencies and consultants that helped us bring this new visual identity to life. Building something at this scale is a team effort and does not happen overnight, and we truly appreciate all the people—both inside and outside PepsiCo—who played a part in setting us up for such an exciting future for our flagship brand.” Pepsi isn’t an anomaly. It’s common for brands not to credit agencies for their work, especially with rebrands, seeing the relationship as a vendor transaction. But agencies are increasingly getting fed up. In 2022, Global MullenLowe and The Martin Agency CEO Kristen Cavallo infamously called out Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong for praising the company’s QR code Super Bowl ad that year. Armstrong, in a series of tweets, said that “no ad agency would have done this ad.” Cavallo responded on Twitter, claiming Martin, agency of record for Coinbase, had in fact come up with the idea: “Except an ad agency did do that ad.” Read more: Super Bowl ad controversy sparks agency uproar It was one of the first times an agency executive publicly started a debate over agencies not getting credit for their advertising ideas. Cavallo declined to comment for this story. Agency executives point to a larger issue Katie Keating, founding partner and co-chief creative officer of independent creative agency Fancy, said she often runs into this issue of clients not giving her teams credit for their work. “We've never been given a reason for not being able to talk about the work,” Keating said. “Only ‘it's our policy.’ As a very small agency, without the structure and funds to do unpaid creative pitches, we depend on our previous work to show that we’re good at what we do. When we’re prevented from doing that, we're prevented from growing our business.” “It’s a big problem for agencies trying to recruit new clients,” said Owen Williams, founder and managing partner of talent firm Outside Lines (formerly Unknown Partners), and former exec for agencies including TBWA\Media Arts Lab and Mother New York. “In our industry, CMOs and founders look and say, ‘That’s cool I want that thing’ and then they go to the people who made those things. If these small design shops can’t publicize their work, who’s going to know they’re doing that work?” Also read: Agency news to know about right now An executive of a different design firm that also had a small part in the design of the new Pepsi logo, but spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize their relationship with the client, said it took their firm a few years to grow business because they weren’t authorized to share most of the work they did. The executive said they work with clients including Apple, which is notorious for not allowing external partners to publicize their work. Apple did not respond to a request for comment. Junior designers are the most disappointed about not being credited for their work, the executive said, because it’s critical to them being able to build their portfolios, grow their careers and get promotions. “Younger artists see it as frustrating as they’re trying to build their portfolios,” the executive said. “If you can’t share that work, you think ‘was it all for nothing?’ It can be stifling for their careers.” The executive said they personally don’t get upset by it anymore because it’s par for the course. The reason behind it, the executive said, is usually pretty simple: “They want to take the credit themselves.” Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Keating said, though, that everyone, regardless of age or rank, wants to be able to show off the work they’ve done. “I don't think it has to do with the age of the person or tenure in the business,” Keating said. “Everyone wants to be able to talk about and show what they've spent months, potentially years, working on.” The design firm executive said the firm has sometimes posted branding work to its website only to have the client ask to have it removed. Most times, the restrictions still allow the firm to share the work internally, and designers can include work in portfolios if they are password protected (meaning they can share with a specific company for a job opening), the person said. But some companies don’t even allow designers to share work in their portfolios, at all. Kevin Grady, senior partner of design at branding and design consultancy Lippincott, said that while “most big corporations are not chasing down young designers,” he has seen nondisclosures that prevent designers from talking about their work at all. “It’s a real problem,” Grady said. “As designers, our work is our life. Sometimes in the business world there is a lack of understanding of why so many of us designers got into this. There is the art side that’s outside of compensation, outside of any business issues. It’s purely about your legacy of work that you’re creating and wanting to put out into the world.” Another agency executive who worked closely with Apple as a client for years said, depending on who was working at the company at the time, sometimes the tech giant would approve credits with names of people attached. “And sometimes we weren’t allowed to say anything about who worked on it,” this executive said. “But then we were always able to enter it into awards, because they care about awards. So there’s a little bit of a double standard that comes from it. See all of Ad Age's 2023 Agency A-List winners here “Obviously from an agency perspective it’s important,” the executive added. “The argument we made is that the agency should be credited, even if the names of the people who worked on it aren’t credited.” The executive added that the credit shouldn’t come before the work itself. “It shouldn’t be focused on the agency,” they said. “But you should still give a nod to your partners because you have acted as partners with these people. It feels a little unfair to not give credit where it’s due because you are paying these people to do the work.” The executive of the design firm that worked on the Pepsi logo said the biggest hurdle they face in all of this is competing to recruit and retain good designers with in-house teams. “Where we struggle and where I get the most frustrated is, we’re all jostling for the same talent,” the executive said. “We’re seeing talent leave to go to our clients. They’re building in-house teams and offering salaries that are hard to compete with. You see this shift in a lot of the younger talent who’s saying, “well, here I am working for this company and I can’t say I’m working for this company so maybe I should just go to that company.’ That hits closer to home.” The inability to publicize work is only one factor contributing to younger designers wanting to move in-house. One design executive who recently left a holding company and went in-house to an apparel company, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said agencies don’t provide good enough work-life balance and it’s causing professionals like her to jump ship. “Once you’re in-house you only work on that one brand,” the in-house executive said. “So, if you’re not in-house, it definitely keeps things more interesting. There is still that. But what might be more appealing is, [in-house], they don’t burn you out as much.” Sasha Martens, president of his independent headhunting firm Sasha the Mensch, said recruiting has long been an issue for design firms. “Designers have long been more comfortable working in-house for a brand,” Martens said. “For in-house companies, design will take center-stage in terms of marketing, versus an agency where design is not the primary focus.” Still, the executive of the design firm said if designers were at least able to publicize their work, maybe the positives of working for an agency versus in-house, including being able to work on different types of brands, would win out more often. “It would be nice if we all could get to a collective place where we can celebrate our accomplishments,” the executive said, “It takes a village.” Contributing: Tim Nudd

Pepsi’s new logo reignites debate about agencies not getting credit for creative work

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