Walmart refreshes its brand with tweaks including a new blue and an old font

Walmart is doing a brand refresh, tweaking its wordmark, trade dress and other specifications, for the first time in nearly 17 years. While the changes are subtle enough that a lot of people may not notice, they collectively amount to a big change for a giant retailer with more than 4,600 stores in the U.S. alone. The refreshed brand hub will officially launch in January, rolling out on Walmart.com, the Walmart app, and throughout marketing campaign assets and the company’s corporate site. The brand refresh was first applied in October at a store in Springdale, Arkansas, and dovetails with the opening of Walmart’s new corporate headquarters in Bentonville this month. Ad Age Tech Power List 2025 We’re looking for top digital innovators from agencies, brands, platforms, ad tech companies and tech startups Enter here A new chunkier font for the wordmark harkens to the logo on a trucker cap worn by founder Sam Walton years ago. It’s inspired by Antique Olive, a font widely used by Walmart from the 1980s to the early 2000s, though “modernized to maximize function and flexibility,” a spokeswoman said. Exclusive for Ad Age All Access subscribers: See profile of Walmart including ad spending and marketing spending over time Walmart’s signature logo, the spark introduced in 2008, remains and will still show up in a field of blue. But the new blue is a darker “True Blue” shade. On storefronts, while the Walmart wordmark and spark remain, they’re getting some distance from one another rather than being bunched together. While the trademark spark isn’t going away, Walmart is giving people broader license to stylize it in various applications, such as on branded tote bags. The internal Walmart Creative Studio collaborated with external agencies including JKR, Landor and Publicis on the development and rollout of the brand refresh, a spokeswoman said. Also read: The 5 best rebrands of 2024 “Walmart aims to be an inspirational, digital retailer that provides all the products, brands and services our customers need and want. This update, rooted in the legacy of our founder, Sam Walton, demonstrates our evolving capabilities and longstanding commitment to serve our customers of today and tomorrow,” said William White, chief marketing officer of Walmart U.S., in a statement. “While the look and feel of our brand is more contemporary, our refreshed brand identity reflects Walmart’s enduring commitment to both Sam’s principles and serving our customers however they need us.” Walmart’s last corporate rebrand in 2008, when it ditched its star hyphen and adopted the spark logo, came as the company was experiencing slower sales growth and was in the midst of a long period of a largely stagnant share price. The current brand refresh comes as Walmart is on a roll—its stock price soared 73% over the past year, comparable-store sales rose 5.3% in the most recently reported quarter (ended Oct. 31) and it raised its full-year guidance in November. Read Ad Age’s 2025 predictions stories here

Walmart refreshes its brand with tweaks including a new blue and an old font

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