Tatas look for 'fresh' brand identity

The Tata group has embarked upon an exercise to "refresh" its corporate identity and has hired international design agency Tower Partners LLC for the purpose.

In an interview with Business Standard, Tata group Chairman Ratan Tata said, "There's a need to refresh the brand from time to time."

Tata said the mandate given to corporate identity design firm Tower Partners was to refresh and strengthen the brand, not to change it.

"There have been issues with the logo. It is difficult to use it in some places. So, the whole thing needs to be looked at but I think we would be crazy to change it," he added.

Tata said most people did not realise how Coca-Cola and Shell had changed over the years and that they had gradually modernised their logos. "If you look at the logo of Shell in the sixties and today, it is different," he said.

Asked whether the group's image was in for a makeover, Tata said how the group was perceived or promoted would not come from a logo, but from other areas of corporate representation.

Asked specifically whether Tower's brief was just the logo or much more, Tata said: "Tower is concerned with our corporate image. But it will not come from just the logo but from our public relations approach, our advertising and, most importantly, from the way we operate."

Alan Taylor, partner at the Atlanta-based company, and other company staffers interviewed senior Tata group directors, employees, senior journalists, financial analysts and members of the government and bureaucracy early this year.

Taylor told Business Standard then that Tower Partners would probably be submitting an interim report to the Tata group by the end of April and a final report next year.