When COVID-19 forced much of the world into quarantine, brands (or more realistically their agencies) quickly began sharing versions of their logos that visually conveyed the idea of social distance.

On the better side, there were ones like South America-based Mercado Libre, which changed its handshake logo to an elbow bump—highlighting simple social-distance efforts at a key time when the region was just beginning to get hit by the disease.

Others were more debatable, typically just finding visually clever ways of illustrating separation, such as breaking up a logo into its component letters or symbols. 

But this week we saw one with a bit more thoughtfulness and heft behind it.

Audi Russia, via agency Leo Burnett Moscow, changed the colors of the brand's famous logo to red and gold. That might not make obvious sense to those of us outside of Russia—or honestly even to most consumers in Russia. That's because the connection was a color-coding system being used at Moscow's largest COVID-19 hospital.

Medical staff at the hospital wears so much protective gear, it can be hard to identify not only individuals but even general roles like nurse or doctor. So the hospital created red badges for doctors and yellow badges for nurses.

Leo Burnett Moscow took something that could have seemed somewhat dystopian and surreal—the idea of color-coding people so you could identify them through protective suits—and turned it into an emotionally resonant color scheme that shows solidarity with the area's medical teams on the front lines.

Best of all, it wasn't just a simple branding move in social media, but rather the sign of a larger commitment by the brand to supply rides to anyone working for the region's health service to stave off the coronavirus.

Since the logo was launched earlier this week, at least seven other brands (including fellow automaker Skoda) have joined the call to change their logos as well—and offer vital services and support to medical teams.

I have to give the Leo Burnett team credit for also acknowledging that, yes, they first tried the "breaking the logo into separate circles" thing, but then realized they need to take their efforts a step farther and show they were truly willing to be part of the solution.

David Griner
Creative and Innovation Editor, Adweek
David.Griner@Adweek.com

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