CooperVision releases radical new identity

One glance at CooperVision's new global corporate identity can't fail to conjure up strong emotions. The colourful new livery, unleashed on the world at the New York Stock Exchange and Vision Expo East in the same city, is unlike anything else the contact lens business has ever seen. But, said Heathcliffe Clash, communications manager - EMEA at CooperVision, that was exactly the point.

The new look is a result of a belief that CooperVision's difference is its strength, a realisation discovered through a rebranding programme conducted by one of the world's leading brand engineers. The moment of revelation came, said Clash, at an exercise centred around a mood wall at the headquarters of the agency Siegel+Gale in New York. This stripped the corporate identities from all of the contact lens products and companies to create a landscape for the market. Clash said this showed that all of the contact lens companies were doing the same things and presenting the same ideas in similar ways to the same audience. This wall was dubbed the sea of sameness and was a flint against which the ideas to differentiate CooperVision sparked.