A Logo Changes What We See. Behavior Changes What We Believe.
- May 10
- 4 min read
Updated: May 11
Recently in Taiwan, Taipower, the state-owned electricity provider, sparked debate after updating its visual identity. The controversy quickly moved beyond whether the new logo looked good, and became a larger question about what rebranding is actually supposed to do.
Anyone with even a basic understanding of brand management should know this: a brand is the impression and feeling that exists in each viewer’s mind.
It is an abstract concept that lives inside every person who sees, uses, or comes into contact with that brand.
A brand, or brand value, is rarely something that can be collectively and concretely described, or precisely quantified as a tangible asset.
Apply this to the recent Taipower discussion, and the issue becomes even more complicated.
If this were a private company, consumers or shareholders could certainly criticize it. The investors or owners could also choose to manage public opinion. In an extreme sense, the company might not even need to care too much about outside voices.
Why?
Because the market will eventually verify the decision.
But this controversy involves a state-owned enterprise trying to rebrand something that already carries a different image in everyone’s mind.
That alone means the discussion was destined to become fragmented, subjective, and difficult to keep purely rational. In the end, it would very likely turn into just another argument online.
Even the reasons behind Taipower’s financial losses are already widely debated, with no clear consensus in public opinion. So when the topic becomes an even more abstract question of brand perception, how are we supposed to determine whether this is an improvement or a downgrade?
There is hardly a common baseline.
How is this even supposed to be discussed?
If rebranding fees have always been difficult to raise in this market, could one reason be that most brand owners, designers, and the general public still directly equate brand with logo and graphic design?
Once the word “design” is attached to branding, the real question should be:
What problem is this design trying to solve?
On this point, the explanation from the design side in this case still seems to focus mostly on identity and application: consistency, usability, and implementation across different media.
If what the design side provides is a contemporary visual language and professional industry knowledge around identity systems, then the price will naturally become a matter of subjective judgment in the eyes of the general public.
In today’s mainstream commercial market, the brand value of the designer also largely determines the fee level.
Recent online discussions have focused on whether Taipower should use calligraphy or a more contemporary visual style.
That part can be studied and discussed, of course, but only to a reasonable extent.
Because personal preference toward a visual image, to some degree, means very little in brand management.
What matters is this:
After changing the identity, can the brand take actions that correspond to and support the new identity?
Ideally, rebranding requires both the organization and the design team to do serious homework.
It is not just about drawing a logo.
It should involve gathering management, looking closely at the product, service, and users, and aligning the organization around the brand’s competitive strategy for the next three, five, or ten years.
Then the design team develops a creative visual solution based on that strategy.
Do you really think these discussions, strategies, creative decisions, and executions — taking half a year, a year, or even longer, and costing several million New Taiwan dollars — are not worth it?
But Taipower is a state-owned enterprise that is losing money. Does it really need to spend more money on rebranding?
Well, you might even change your pants before taking out the trash because you care about how your neighbors see you.
So why would an important national institution not need to care about brand management?
Maybe Taipower’s management and designers do have strategic goals they cannot publicly disclose.
Or maybe they have not fully recognized that brand management actually contains all these layers.
Take bills, energy-saving communication, and recruitment as examples.
If a new identity strategy can make electricity bills clearer, make energy-saving information easier to understand, reduce customer service calls, reduce misunderstandings, and even encourage people to adjust their electricity usage, then what it saves is time, labor, and money.
If it can also make ten or twenty bright graduates every year believe that returning to their hometown to work for Taipower is a meaningful, stable job with ideals and a future, instead of choosing a higher-paying job in Hsinchu’s semiconductor industry, that is also savings.
Yes, these things can be influenced by visual design, information design, and brand communication.
If rebranding can reduce communication costs and improve talent attraction, then how is NT$900,000 expensive?
That would be extremely cost-effective.
So the Taipower logo controversy is not really about whether the old or new visual style wins.
Form has no final answer.
The real questions are:
What problem is Taipower trying to solve through this rebranding?
And after adopting the new identity, can Taipower deliver corresponding actions, services, and products?
A brand is not defined by the applause or criticism on the day a logo is launched.
A brand is the result of an organization using its actions, over time, to give that identity real meaning.
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