Social media has given a big thumbs up to the new Gumtree Australia logo, with an overwhelming number of positive responses, on Twitter especially.
Gumtree is known all over the world as an online classifieds site where people go for buying and selling all different services and products.
After upgrading the U.K arm of the business, Gumtree Australia has now been given a logo makeover.
The simple geometric tree looks much more relevant to the company’s position as an online marketplace. It replaces an outdated logo, to now visually match its competitors.
The upgrade looks fresher and is more aligned with the service of Gumtree, whilst maintaining the heart and soul of its original presence.
A lot of market research revealed to Gumtree that the majority of their customers highly disliked their previous company logo. Results showed that the logo lacked any sort of significance, the colors were outdated and the number of colors and visuals was too chaotic for a modern day brand.
In response, Gumtree decided to hire brand experts Koto to design a new logo over three months, to appeal more to their modern day customers.
Koto took on the response of the public to understand exactly what it was they disliked. The brief from Gumtree was to create a much simpler logo that enhances recognition and can fit at any scale, whether this be on mobile screens or outdoor billboards.
As 80% of all users navigate Gumtree through their mobile device, the emphasis on simplistic, yet recognizable, was important. The old design embodied a eucalyptus or gum tree. This type of tree has natural connotations with stability and growth.
However, this meaning may have been lost on consumers over the years. Gumtree requested that the eucalyptus tree remain in the logo. The Koto design team kept the 3 main ideas of simplicity, digital and modern in mind.
The new logo design took three months to create and utilizes very simple geometric shapes to represent the tree, using a strong green to pop out.
The logo is now much more streamlined and functional, representing the customers’ needs and use for Gumtree.
The most significant part of this rebrand transformation, is that Gumtree made the decision to change their logo in response to user opinion from a number of sources, including social media.
This is incredibly forward thinking, if not a little risky, and positions Gumtree as customer driven.
