Microsoft’s core problem is that they have lost the hearts of computer enthusiasts. Regular people don’t think about their choice of computer platform in detail and with passion like nerds do because, duh, they are not nerds. But nerds are leading indicators.

In some ways Microsoft seems to be getting more exciting again. Whether it is the good early reports of Windows 7, Project Natal, their Yahoo! search deal, the XBox’s continuing strength or their Bing search engine, things appear to be happening for them again. Nevertheless, they have just posted some very poor results, and there are still plenty of questions about their business strategies. The problem they have, is that whatever they do, Windows is their life-blood. Take a look at John Gruber’s take on Microsoft’s Long Slow Decline.

But it was not just the drop in sales that forced their hand: it was also the reaction out on the internet that made them recognise there was a problem. People genuinely loved the old Tropicana branding, with its straw in the orange and big green friendly typography — it was something they had grown up with, were comfortable with and easily recognised. While it had evolved over the years, it had never been through such a radical change.

Thanks to the internet regular people have gained an enormous amount of power when it comes to shaping the brands they love (or hate). Whether it be via forums, Facebook, Twitter, blogs or plain old email, people can connect with brands in a direct way that they never had before, as well as exert pressure by creating similarly-minded groups. This can be threatening for the brands, but also extremely useful if it is embraced: it’s like free user testing or focus groups. In response companies can tweak their service, campaign or product. Nevertheless, brands need to be confident in what they are doing. Understanding how to listen to customers is an art, and it does not help to lurch around trying to placate everybody, while pleasing no one or failing to move a larger strategy forwards. Sometimes you need to move on despite your existing audience.

The New York Times covered the story, and it is a worthwhile lesson in not only the risks of rebranding, but also the whole branding process as it can sometimes be practiced.

Also worth a read is Newsweek’s interview with Peter Arnell, the man behind the rebrand, as well as DKNY, the new controversial Pepsi identity and many others.

We’ve been doing a lot of work recently for London Youth Rowing (LYR) – a ground breaking sporting initiative that aims to develop young people through physical activity and make rowing accessible to all. We created a new look for LYR and designed and built their new website. The site is content managed (WordPress) and is also designed to interact with the CRM tool Salesforce.com.

As well as designing their online look, we have also been responsible for other design work – in particular the branding of an LYR initiative called Row East London! This is an initiative aimed at improving the fitness, health and well-being of young people in the ten East London Olympic and Gateway boroughs. The initiative was launched last week on 17th March in the company of Olympic medalists and Kate Hoey MP. The launch took place at The National Junior Indoor Rowing Championships (NJIRC) – which is the largest indoor rowing competition in the world with over 1,900 participants. Photos of the launch event, with the Row East London logo featuring prominently on t-shirts, can be viewed here.

He rightly sees the internet not as the ‘enemy’ that will kill them off, but an opportunity. For someone who came so late to the internet, he now seems born again, an optimist who sees the internet as a catalyst for new ways of doing things. People are “hungrier for information than ever before… Readers want what they’ve always wanted: a source they can trust. That has always been the role of great newspapers in the past and that role will make newspapers great in the future.”

Read more coverage by the Associated Press and ReadWriteWeb.

We are pleased to announce the launch of the site for COPE – the Committee on Publication Ethics. COPE are the “the kitemark of medical journals” – working towards high ethical standards and safeguarding the integrity of the scientific record.  In other words, they “help scientific journals to get their houses in order”.

We developed the brand for COPE and designed and built the site from the ground up. COPE wanted the site to be a forum where publishers and editors of peer-reviewed journals could discuss issues related to the integrity of work submitted to or published in their journals. Also required were different levels of membership to the site, each with varying degrees of access and functionality.  To cope with this (excuse the pun) we built the site using the modular content management system Drupal.

The site launched successfully and has received great feedback from COPE members – of which there are 3022 to date. A big thank you to the COPE team and, in particular, to COPE’s Jeremy Theobald and Linda Gough for their hard work and dedication on what has been both a challenging and enjoyable project.

We’ve been busy recently – we’ve also just launched the website for Jane Wentworth Associates. JWA are a consultancy that helps cultural organisations, like Somerset House, the V&A and the Natural History Museum, understand and clarify their brands. The website will be evolving over the next few months as more case studies are included.