BlogSmall business, Marketing, Promotion and Web Design

Everyone knows how contemporary cash register looks like. It’s a beast with tiny monochrome screen, full size computer keyboard with credit card reader and printer, that spits out couple of yards of specially crafted cash register paper anytime you go and buy a bag of groceries. God forbid you enter Staples/BestBuy/CompUSA - those will just sink you in a cash register tape. People who man registers look to me like machine gunners of World War II, constantly reloading their things as they run out of ammo. All the registers in the store are tied into a network that stores orders, customer information, any promotions I used ever since the store opened and so on.

Why am I still getting two yards of paper with purchase? Just so the nervously shaking guy with a pen can scribe something on it when I exit the store? Oh, wait, in case I want to exchange something - I need to bring the merchandise and the receipt. No exchange without the receipt. They know where I live, they know which credit card I used, they know my home and work phone numbers, they have a history of my purchases since the Big Bang, they even have the whole process on camera (now there’s cameras everywhere, especially pointing at the cash registers) but they still need those two yards of paper back when I bring back the merchandise. Why?

With so much recording going on, I don’t need to be handed the paper at all. Or at least - don’t have to keep it around. Sure, there’s a need for store security to check on how many items I am carrying out of the store, but that doesn’t require using that much paper. And for return - I should be able to conduct returns/exchanges using the credit card that I purchased the items with. Obviously, people who pay cash should get the full-blown receipt anyhow, but for regular folks who don’t suffer from paranoia and prefer convenience - we shouldn’t be suffering from receipts collection disorder.

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This morning as I was passing a long row of curbside parked cars on my way to subway, I observed something, most of us know but don’t quite realize. Hyundai has the weakest logo on the block. Look at it’s closest competitor - Honda. The capital H in the logo looks almost like a bridge tower. It communicates power and stability. Hyundai’s logo looks like same bridge tower skewed to the side, like telling us that it is tired, bored and need to lean on something to keep itself up. The logo, of course, projects image on the whole brand.
Then, as I kept walking, I looked at other car’s logos. Aside from Volvo and Pontiac, who explicitly project strong and masculine image, the rest of the logos looked very powerful too. Take Toyota - the overpowered T on their logo looks like a bodybuilder from another, also familiar, emblem - Mul-T-lock. Jeep and Ford aside (guess designers were out of ideas, so they just wrote car’s make on the logo to distinguish them from same cars sold under different make) rest of the companies do a better job at logos. Four rings of Audi project unity and strong bond, thanks to remote resemblance to Olympic rings. Century-old propeller empowers BMW. Buffalo’s head looks pretty strong on Dodge. It’s hard to say what Pontiac’s logo represents as I am torn between images of rocket and phallus that are pretty similar in nature. I’m sure you’ve got the idea.
So, what’s the outcome? Hyundai, now a solid player on US market of cheap cars, should probably just redesign their logo. Yes, I know about brand recogition and associated costs, but in the long run it will benefit company’s image and profit, bringing more revenues and thus justifying the re-branding cost.

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