Closed Bug 658730 Opened 13 years ago Closed 10 years ago

Co-branding logos for partners

Categories

(Marketing :: Design, task)

Product:
Marketing
Component:
Design
Type:
task
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED FIXED

People

(Reporter: gjost, Assigned: smartell)

References

Details

(Whiteboard: --on hold--)

Attachments

(6 files)

Ingredient Partners
286.18 KB, image/png
Details
Standard and multi-brand
670.66 KB, image/png
Details
Examples of what not to do
1.18 MB, image/png
Details
Old FF Logo Audit
203.51 KB, image/png
Details
mozilla + ignite partner lockup screenshot
15.77 KB, image/png
Details
bing + Firefox partnership lockup reference.
152.97 KB, image/png
Details 
As we work with more and more partners, branding issues are becoming increasingly difficult to deal with. We would like to create a co-branding kit for our partners to use in a variety of scenarios to simplify the approval process and better protect our brand.

It would be great to create specific logo sets to accomodate the following scenarios. Ideally, the sets should be available in horizontal and vertical formats, as well as logo-only and logo + wordmark versions. Also, it should work for both desktop and mobile. Although this will definitely be less frequent, we might these for aurora and beta as well.


Here is a list of potential use cases:


> Standard partnership
- scenario: brand association
- example: co-promotion campaign / ad, joint anounncement or press release
- direction: we just need to focus on the brands, not on the actual product as there is no download involved here.


> distribution deal - standard firefox version
- scenario: one of our partners offers the official Firefox build for download on their site but still want their brand to be associated to the operation.
- example: Promotion campaign, brand endorsement, affiliate agreement
- direction: we should make it clear that the version distributed is the regular one as the presence of a partner logo might suggest otherwise.


> distribution deal - partner edition
- scenario: one of our partners offers a customized Firefox edition for download on their site.
- example: different search services featured, pre-installed add-on/toolbar, persona...
- directions: unlike the previous scenario, we want to make it clear to the user that they are not using the official Firefox version, but a special flavor, optimised for the partner. We need to come up with a proper wording for that, either 'optimized for [partner]' or '[partner] edition'

Kev, don't hesitate to add other use vases that might require different logos. I suggest we file a separate bug for the official 'short description' of firefox you were referring to.

Note: as these partnerships tend to be local, l10n is key here, so we should come up with something that can be translated without breaking the logo. Alternatively, we can consider using the term 'edition' without translating as this one 'travels well' and is widely recognized in other languages too (Stas, what do you think?).
Thought I would mention that for use cases #2 and #3 (distro deals), we could also consider adding special download buttons to the sets.
Thanks for filing this Greg.  Great recap.  Here are a few additional notes I had taken from the meeting, in terms of other use cases:

* Add-ons and other software:
Not distributing Firefox but a piece of software that works with Firefox...like extensions.

* Guidelines around mozilla code base and services:
Things based on FF or mozilla code, but not really FF or Mozilla products.  This is similar to our "powered by mozilla" branding: http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/trademarks/poweredby/faq.html


Not sure if we can tackle these two as part of the scope for this bug since they will likely require longer discussions...  but good points of consideration when thinking of the overall strategy.  Kev also mentioned something about a case where (as a subset of distribution partnership) we're included in a download directory but are not aware of it.  Perhaps he can add some more details around what this means.


Few questions/comments:

* Do you have examples of recent partner lockups or partner deals for reference?
* Do you have examples of other brands that have done a good job of this?  I can also do some searching as well, but good to see some other examples.
* What is your timing on this?  I'd imagine that it would take some time to get this right... especially since we're still finalizing our own official lockups.  But wanted to get a sense of your timing here.
* Filing a separate [copy] bug for the short description would be great.
Thanks for completing Tara. I lost my notes and knew something was missing here.

Here are the recent partner lockups I showed you during the meeting:
They are all different but equally bad! This is why we need this kit
- Yahoo: http://downloads.yahoo.com/us/firefox/
- Yandex: http://fx.yandex.ru/
- Seznam: http://software.seznam.cz/firefox
- Web.de: http://produkte.web.de/browser/ff/?si=3FRtodxQT3iwy1N6OVo*001 and http://produkte.web.de/browser/?si=bBXVkStPyyoulfiI7aJ*002

In terms of other brands and examples, I did some  research and cannot say I found anything very exciting or in the same spirit as what we are trying to do here. Here are the 3 main co-branding categories that most brands seem to use:

- approved partner badges:
Microsoft: http://www.google.fr/search?q=microsoft+partner+logo&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:fr:unofficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=fr&tab=wi&biw=1440&bih=826
Google: http://www.google.fr/search?hl=fr&client=firefox-a&hs=t9X&rls=org.mozilla:fr:unofficial&q=google+partner&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1440&bih=826

- sub-brands
eBay / Prostores: http://www.prostores.com/ecommerce-eBay.html

- event partners
Lots of them in the sport area (olympics, etc.)
http://www.autokiosk.nl/wp-content/uploads/2010-Skoda-Partner-logo-Tour-de-France.jpg
http://bit.ly/l8ZGnP

As I said, not 100% satisfied with all these as they merely put 2 logos side-by-side (at best). Hope this helps though.


In terms of timing, I was hoping to get our partners to update their download pages with (or shorty after) the Firefox 5 release so mid-June would be great. Does that sound feasible?

Will file a copy bug for the official short description (I believe this is what we need for the download directories).
Blocks: 652261
Thanks Greg. I added this to the master tracking bug for our brand toolkit project.

Sean, what do you think about the mid-June timing?
Quick [late] update:  Still waiting on final approval of the basic wordmark lockups.  Then we can proceed and figure out how to tackle this bug.  Timing is TBD.
Hey Greg, sorry for the slow response on this.  Sean recently finalized the new wordmarks and has been busy working on the brand toolkit (which I believe is nearly done).  So, needless to say we missed the mid-June timing.  Sorry about that.  There has been a lot on our plates, but we didn't forget about this.  We'll be sure to get this sorted out in early Q3.  Is that okay with you?  Thanks for your patience.
Yup that's ok. Please let me know as soon as you have more visibility on timing. Looking forward to the first proposals.
Hey guys. Just checking back in on this. What are the main things holding us up from moving ahead here? Is it just timing or are there other bits of information that need to be determined or decided?
We were waiting for the wordmark lockups to be finalized (done), and for the Toolkit work to be off Sean's plate (done), and now we need to recall our conversation and sketches from the meeting we had, and start mocking up different scenarios and developing the rules.  Sean is on it and is planning on making this an early Q3 update to the toolkit.  So, asap in Q3 is our current goal.  Will let Sean speak to this in more detail.
Thanks Tara. Sean, I know you have a lot on your plate but let us know what you think about timing here.
Assignee: tshahian → smartell
Hey Sean, I know you're on Holiday today and generally slammed with various things.  But, what's a rough ETA on this?  Just checking in so Greg has a better sense of when to expect things.  And of course, let me know how I can help.
My hope is that we can wrap this up by 8/5 so it can go in phase 1 of the brand toolkit. We'll see what Sean is thinking though.
Hey all.  Sorry for the delay on this. It got hauled in to the greater toolkit project.

I've had a go at a first pass and would like you to have a look and give feedback based on what I have so far: http://cl.ly/180x2R2E2i3r1h2J1n0Q

Let me know if the usage scenarios are correct and/or if there is any tweaking you'd like to see.  

Should we have a couple of options ie. vertical/horizontal, etc?
Greg & Kev, can you guys please weigh in on comment #13 soon? We need to get this stuff over to WebDev soon and I want to make sure the partner lockup info is included.

Thanks!
Thanks Sean and Tara. Here are a few comments:
- Standard edition: I am fine with this. It's clean, flexible and l10n-friendly

- Distribution deal - partner edition: the logo will not be using "partner edition" but the actual partner's name or logo. We can keep this one but we would absolutely need additional use cases where the partner's brand is embedded:
> 1 using a partner's wordmark
> 1 using their logo

- Distribution deal - standard edition: I have no immediate feedback on this one. Thinking it should work fine but will let Kev chime in just in case there are use cases I haven't thought of that this might not work with.
Thanks Greg. Kev, let us know what you think!
Thanks Sean (and Greg for the feedback)  Here are my quick thoughts:

* Agree that we're not seeing enough of a range of options here.  I feel like we had talked about much more?

* Is there a reason why on the standard edition split our Logo mark is not presented first? Sounds silly, but the order makes a big difference in my opinion. 

* What about multi-brand partnerships? (more than one).  I'm looking at an old Yahoo brand book here, and they've got a version with three logos.  Not sure if that applies to us, but just a thought. 

* What about versions with just the logo, or just the wordmarks? In addition to the "partner editions" that Greg mentioned. Some partners may have a wordmark only mark, or a mark that (for whatever reason) severely outweighs ours in a standard split presentation.  So, for those cases, I think it's good to have other options to help equalize them a bit.  

* What about horizontal vs. vertical?  

* What about general mozilla partnerships? perhaps that's out of scope for this bug.
Tara,

Could you take a pic of that older brand book page we were looking at?  I have a brand book here that I got, but that page isn't in it.

Thanks!
Yes sir.  Attaching Yahoo's:

* Standard and multi-brand partner examples 
* "what not to do" examples (always good to have)
* "ingredient partners"  I thought this was interesting. 

It's a big binder and the partner tab is too much to photo-scan to you.  But, definitely some good stuff in there.  I've used it here and there as a reference.
Attached image Ingredient Partners — 

    
    

    
  


  

    
    

    
  
Wait, were you referring to our *own* older brand book?  I believe you took my copy of that with you :)

    
    

    
  

      
      
      
      

        Attached image
          
        Old FF Logo Audit
        — 
      

    


  

    
    

    
  
Hey Sean,
Do you have any update on this?
I have a few partners waiting for this to create landing pages and it would be really helpful if we could send them something finalized next week.
Hope this is realistic.

    
    

    
  
Sean has been on PTO all this week, but is back Monday. Let's definitely pick this up early next week.

    
    

    
  
I believe we've been waiting for input from Kev.  I had also sent an email to him (with you too, Greg) pinging to make sure we get some additional feedback going this week while Sean is on PTO so he can jump on it next week when he returns.

    
    

    
  
Ping ?

    
    

    
  
(In reply to Tara from comment #28)
> Ping ?

Kev!

    
    

    
  
Too much bugmail and email. Apologies. Will review and comment by tomorrow am.

    
    

    
  
Ping #2

    
    

    
  
Sorry for the delay and here's my feedback:

We should probably do this for all of our named products and services. I know JB and David Sifry are working on distribution and service deals, 

Naming policy: We've generally tried to use the word "Edition" in naming partner builds. It implies a special version of Firefox, and it's not, it's a default version of Firefox with some changed settings and possibly an addon or two. We've tried to get organizations to use "Firefox for <Partner>" or "Firefox with <addon>" vs. Edition or Optimized (the latter of which is a major peeve of mine ;) ). Not a huge deal, I'd just like to get some consistency around it, and have no strong opinions beyond consistency and simplicity.

Co-branding Example: We've had a lot of partners mention our branding guidelines are too wide. I'd like to get an asset that plays well to a square or portrait placement, as these tend to be more common with partner messaging. I like the Std edition logo and wordmark for this. 

- Std: Like it. Nice and Simple. 
- Distribution Deal: Per Greg's comment and figuring out a naming convention, it'd be good to permit them to add their name instead of "Partner edition". This is where the "for Yahoo!" or "with StumbleUpon" would be great to replace "Partner Edition". Can we offer an option where we provide style guides for replacing Partner Edition with the above? 
- Distribution Deal: .

Works with Firefox/Mozilla Product: Per Tara's comment, we do need something for orgs that distribute addons through AMO or their site. In a lot of cases they just use our logo outright, and it'd be good to have some approved mark that orgs can use with addons that are compatible with Firefox (and Firefox-based) products. As we get more services working with the product, along with Web Apps, this'll also become a bigger need.

Multi-brand partnerships: We generally don't do this outside of Mozilla (e.g. Campus ed.). I don't think we would have multi-brands, and I'd like to avoid billboard-o-logos if we can. Don't think we need guidelines on this, as any multi-partner deals would be a special case, and I'd want to understand who they were associating our brand with in the case of multiple other brands. No strong opinion, just something I think we should consider.

I agree with the need for the extra use cases, and one area I'd also cover off is the download button and the use of marks there. A number of our partners use the mark as the download button, and we should give guidance there (not a logo, but best practices, taking into account regional differences in color selection (e.g. blues and greens in a lot of Asian countries being bad luck, etc.).

    
    

    
  
aaaannndd forgot the comments on the dist deal std edition, which was we need a portrait option.

We'll also need placement and sizing guidelines for the logos, as we've seen people use giant versions (like about:home, but bigger), and tiny versions as afterthoughts. It'd be great if we can lay out the logo usage as well, and the what nots and examples would be very helpful.

k

    
    

    
  
Do you guys have everything you need? Sean? 
I need to send it urgently (we are already pretty late). So an update would be greatly appreciated.

Regarding the naming conventions mentioned by Kev on comment 32, I like both 'edition' and 'firefox for / with". I think each of them work in specific cases:
- 'Edition' could be used for packaged builds offering multiple changes (bookmarks, add-ons, custom  search...) that "specialize" the browser (e.g. vertical browsers: shopping edition, media edition...). "Firefox for" could play the same role with a clearly identified partner (e.g. Firefox for Yandex). Personally, I would have named the Twitter build Firefox for Twitter, not "Firefox with Twitter"
- "Firefox with" could be limited to a more distinct, isolated customization like a pre-installed add-on (e.g. "Firefox with eBay Assistant", "Firefox with Yahoo toolbar")

Let me know your thoughts on this. It would be good to lock this down as part of the branding work you guys have done - still urgent though ;)

    
    

    
  
Hey guys, sorry for the extended delay (on our part this time).  I've read through the comments and don't really have much to add.  I think Sean has addressed some of this in his work and the toolkit already, but want to make sure he's had a chance to read through and comment on the rest.  

Sean, I know you're busy (as usual) can you take a look at this and share your thoughts around next steps?  Thanks.

    
    

    
  
Sorry for the delay on this folks but we are currently pausing on finalizing any further brand mockups at this time (ongoing brand architecture discussions).

If there are urgent lockups needed, could you let me know the exact partner and logo needed and I can do up a set of specific lockups based on need?

Thanks!

    
    

    
  
Sean, can you provide a status update on this? Thanks.

    
    

    
  
Kristin / Beard / Slater / I are still in discussions about the brand and the structure of our brand families.

Is there a specific partner I can mock something up for? I'm not sure when this discussion will resolve and allow us to finalize this. I believe Kristin will need to be involved with this as well.

    
    

    
  
Copying Kristin (Kristin, see comment #38 and above for details).

I know this has dragged on for awhile, and apologies. There are some high-level decisions that need to be made around the relationship of Mozilla & Firefox that will impact this work, so I do think it's best to wait on that before building out the entire system.

That said, I agree with Sean that if there are any immediate needs we can go ahead and do those. Just let us know...this big picture stuff doesn't need to block any current work.

    
    

    
  
Now that Bing is about to launch, I no longer have any specific emergency. Just a range of partners with landing pages we will need to update as soon as we have the new logos.

I would rather not create one-offs we can't replicate or that will not be consistent with future logos. So I guess it's best to hold off here.

Please keep me posted on how the discussions go.

    
    

    
  
Thanks John.  Greg, how should we proceed?  What can we help you with in the short term while the bigger picture stuff are being sorted out?  And like John said, sorry it has dragged on for so long.

    
    

    
  
I would rather hold off for now.

The point of the kit was to provide partners with a range of approved options (logo vs wordmark, vertical vs horizontal...) to ease the implementation process. Without this, we will have to iterate with each partner and I am worried it might take too much time/resource (don't want to get this process started and get stuck here too).

Please just keep me posted on the branding discussions so we can pick up where we left off.

    
    

    
  
Hey guys (Greg/Sean):  What's the best next step here? close this bug and reopen if needed? or keep it open indefinitely and update when there are updates?  Just trying to clear out my triage list of old/idle bugs.  But also don't want us to forget about this.  

Thoughts?

    
    

    
  
Ok. no one is responding here :)   I guess I'll keep it open for now...
Attaching a recent example I caught with mozilla + ignite: https://mozillaignite.org/index.html

    
    

    
  


  
Not sure if this was approved, but just an example of use cases to reference.

    
  
Status: NEW → ASSIGNED

    
  
Whiteboard: --on hold--

    
    

    
  
Closing out this old bug as this has been detailed (mostly) in our current style guide. http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/styleguide/identity/firefox/branding/
Status: ASSIGNED → RESOLVED
Closed: 10 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED

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