CSC cranks the whalesong up to 11

Focussed business plan?

What they mean is that there's no coherent thought behind it...

Chillington

I recently drove past a lorry which had a corporate identity along the side:

Chillington

Britain's Largest Wheelbarrow Manufacturer

This is now my benchmark for any rebranding I see: do I instantly know your name and what you do? Paris would understand who makes wheelbarrows in GB.

CSC != SCC

And there was me thinking this was another Cheap, Small Computers™ article.

Tux, 'cause he likes SCC™s.

Translated...

"Our logo comprises two elements: the new logotype and the holding shape."

Well actually its one element 'cause if you took away the 'holding shape' the letters would disappear.

"At once contemporary and classic,"

That's like saying small and big, ugly and beautiful or stupid and smart

"the logotype should remain relevant over time."

Until some marketing drone convinces us to spend millions on a brand new logo.

"its rectangular form and angled edges serve to connect the holding shape to our larger visual system."

It's connected to your eyes?

"Lastly, by retaining and emphasizing the color red, we are reinforcing our visual differentiation amongst the competitive set."

Yup, we are the only company in the world to use red in our logo

Paris because she is at once beautiful and stupid

@Chillington

Not makers of the largest wheelbarrow in the GB then? Paris would be confused clearly.

Oh, dear.

I feel especially sorry for all those poor souls who went through the Post Office => Consignia rebranding only to get outsourced to CSC a few years ago.

Meet the new boss...

I can't help but think that a big rebranding exercise just tells clients, employees and competitors that a company needs to concentrate more on its money to sense ratio.

17 pages of utter b*ll*cks

17 pages of utter b*ll*cks

Looks like...

...an 80 column punch card with the corner missing.

The one hung over the Zimmer frame with the pension book in the pocket.

Without looking....

Take a piece of paper and draw the uk olympic logo... now that's modern branding.... you remember you hate it, but can't remember what it looks like so it's good because it's forgettable! Like a bad memory you can quickly erase.

Personally I think it's a missed opportunity. They could have emphasized the science by making it into a chemical formula, something like CsC (s subscripted like H2O). Or ditched the 2 C and done C2s (C with a superscripted 2 and a subscripted S). Done a whole campaign about how their business is a science. Even still cut the corners, but done a campaign of interlocking logos to show how C2s fits into other businesses.... oh well.

TUX, because Linux Laptots sounds less whiny than Windows Waptots.

@ Ralph

Don't want to alarm you, but may find Specialist Computer Centres hold the rights to SCC (TM). Ironically CSC is a customer of theirs.

Nobody suspects...

"Our logo comprises two elements: the new logotype and the holding shape" and the bright shiny red colour. Three elements. I'll come in again.

Oh, and to me, ignoring the letters, it looks a bit like a Vodafone SIM with another corner cut out. Go on Voda, sue the pants off them.

I prefer ..

.. the real CSC (http://www.csccrop.co.uk/).

Back to the article - sounds like the company board have just reproduced what the Design Company said when it handed over the invoice for £5m for the "redesign".

Again, Clothes, Emperor, New - re-arrange as you will.

Does anyone else remember Private Eyes Pseuds Corner? A great place for this type of "VapourSpeak"

Flash

They have a bigger problem on the web - when I visit their page all I get is "upgrade your Flash player" so I still have no idea of who or what they are.

Oh well.

And I agree, we need to see the old logo too. Meanwhile, their old one is available here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20051230191258/www.csc.com/images/global/logo.gif

Don't forget

Don't forget that their rebranding and repositioning is also paired with a 7% RIF in North America.

Former Employee

I used to work for them, right out of college. Went from AMTS to Computer Scientist in less than four years - skipping one of the titles along the way. When I wanted to move out of the state I was in, did they want to place me elsewhere? Nope.

Too bad for them - I would have been a "loyal company type". I still have some friends there; I suspect they are mostly just punching the clock. Good luck to them.

Pirates, for obvious reasons.

@ ShaggyDoggy

...Ah, but -- you see -- it's a "container", so it can't be a brick, but a HOLLOW rectangular object with the letters floating in the middle of it.

Which gives us the accompanying slogan to sit under the logo:

"CSC: Thinking Inside the Box®"

(That'll be $17,000, please, for the re-re-branding... Cash, and in small bills.)

CSC, always behind

The problem with CSC is that we are always behind and struggling to catch-up with the rest of the world. We play catch-up on people management, where we have no clue on how to effectively manage, grow and REALLY motivate and inspire people. We play catch-up in technology and innovation, where we publish on our internal magazines ideas that we describe as REVOLUTIONARY... only the IT industry adopted those ideas at least 5 years earlier... and to try and make up we establish lame Leading Edge Forums of dubious value. We play catch-up in developing effective strategies. We play catch-up in our organisational model and don't cascade its changes down well enough, so people are confused about the organisation they work for, and the surrounding organisations. And now, we're REALLY playing catch-up on branding, where we present the importance of branding as something people have never heard of, by publishing (even on an external site, so that other people can laugh at us!) presentations on how branding "have the power to create and [...] sustain real economic value"... well, wake up CSC, this is stuff that we have known for at least 50 years!! It almost feels like our top management needed a bit of training on branding, they got it, liked it, and now they're reselling it to us! Only we are not so out of touch with the rest of the world.... perhaps our branding should reflect our need to "accelerate", into the 21st century, where everybody else is.

Women and Children First

...Look likes thier "shuffling the deck chairs" as steamboat CSC sinks....!!

HP, IBM or 'other' to buy it before the year is out?

as a current mid-level CSC employee...

I would like to apologize to the shareholders who never see a stinking penny in the form of a dividend and to the clients who pay a substantial sum for our services, for this jaunt into sheer stupidity by our executive "management".

Personally, I'm embarrassed as I had the same first impression as another poster: CSC cuts corners.

I chose Paris because even she doesn't blow money on stupid ideas of that magnitude.

Actually...

...I rather like it. Know nothing about the company, but the logo's pretty good. My litmus test is: Would it look good on the side of an F1 car? I'd say this one would.

BSG

I've never heard of CSC, and now my impression is that they are stupid enough to pay millions for tat and that the people they paid just took partial Battlestar Galactica paper and wrote "CSC" on it. Yeah. Genius.

It took longer to write the associated bullshit than to make the actual thing.

Maybe I'm just sore that someone won't sort me out for life by paying me silly money to "rebrand" them (and take my own sweet time to do it)

New acronym

I showed this article to my 8-year old son. He thought about it for a while, and then said "So CSC means Cuts Some Corners?"

Get behing the Lawyers

Those marketing driods need to be next in line after all the lawyers are put up against the wall.

CSC

CSC = Can't Support Crap

A joke of a company

Cowboy's Servicing Computers. Far too many non technical middle managers. Far too many non technical project managers.

There are so many service delivery managers (again who have little or no technical knowledge) that as a techie it's sometimes impossible for find a sdm to take responsibilty)

The main people at CSC are the accountants who have to deliver cost savings.

The senior management have made such a fuss over this re branding. If we could offer customers up to date technology, implemented by technical staff who understand the products then maybe CSC can accelerate. However I think not.