Stop Freaking Out About the New Disney Plus Logo. It’s a Lesson in Smart Branding

A few days ago, Disney Plus rolled out a new logo that appears when you first open the app. Technically, the logo design is mostly the same; it’s the color that has changed. Instead of the dark blue background, you’ll now find a more teal-colored logo. 

As happens, a lot of people freaked out about the change, and–since the internet is a thing–many of them shared their opinions. It seems that people don’t like it when their favorite streaming service messes with, well, anything. 

I’m usually someone who argues that companies should almost never change their logo. I’m also not going to argue that the new logo is better than the old, but I do think Disney managed to do something really clever, which makes this change worthwhile.

I’ll get to that in a minute, but first, I should acknowledge that a lot of people won’t agree with me. They just don’t like change. My wife thinks I’m nuts for defending the new logo. My podcast co-host made it clear on our most recent episode that he thinks I’m just wrong. That’s all fine, but–respectfully–I think they’re missing an important point. Two, actually.

To understand what happened, it’s worth mentioning that the change in the logo comes alongside another change: Hulu is now a part of the Disney Plus app. Previously, the two services were entirely separate. In fact, Hulu goes back much further than Disney Plus, which launched in November 2019. 

Hulu, on the other hand, was started by NBCUniversal, News Corporation, and Disney. The idea was to create a place for television content from their respective networks, NBC, Fox, and ABC. 

Over time, Disney bought Fox from News Corporation, Comcast bought NBCUniversal, and Disney bought out Comcast’s share of Hulu in November of last year. A month later, Disney started testing adding a Hulu “hub” to the Disney Plus app. On Wednesday, it rolled out to everyone. 

Now that Disney owns the streaming service outright, it makes sense for the company to combine the two as a way to drive subscriptions to the overall Disney Plus + Hulu bundle. It also kind of makes the experience better if you subscribe to both to only have to use one app. As streaming service apps go, Disney Plus is actually one of the better overall user interfaces. 

And, so, now the two are combined, which helps explain why it also changed the logo. There are, of course, plenty of examples of companies that change branding or logos because maybe someone in the C-suite got bored. HBO Max, for example, is now just “Max,” because that definitely is a clearer identifier of an app that combines WarnerBros., HBO, and–hang on–Discovery.

There does seem to be some unwritten rule that you have to change your logo every so often. It’s like how dentists tell you to change out your toothbrush. But, while that might be good oral hygiene, it’s almost always a bad idea for a brand. 

But, here are those two points I mentioned earlier. First, Disney managed to make enough of a change to communicate to its audience that something is different. Disney Plus now includes Hulu. It’s not the same app as it was before. It just makes sense that you’d want to represent that difference in some way visually. 

By the way, I mostly ignored the official Disney talk about how the new logo has something to do with the Aurora Borealis (the Northern Lights). Sure, there are a few movies with northern lights in them (Frozen, I guess), but they are not Cinderella’s castle, which has been the logo of Walt Disney Pictures for basically ever. 

Second–and maybe more importantly, Disney was able to maintain the value of the brand it had already established with Disney Plus. That’s the biggest risk a company runs when it makes a change to its name, or logo–that it loses the equity it has built up. After all, your brand isn’t actually about your logo. Your brand is the way your customers feel about your business. Your logo just reminds them of that feeling. 

That means your logo isn’t the most important thing (the experiences they have with your products and company are far more important), but it does matter. The reason I think this is such a smart change is because it perfectly walks that fine line. It tells customers there is a change, but it manages to maintain the brand. 

I think it’s fair to say that almost no company understands its brand, and–more importantly, understands its customers–better than Disney. This is just one of the best examples yet.