Decoding Johnson & Johnson’s Rebrand: A Strategic Analysis
In the last month, Johnson & Johnson, the iconic pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare giant, underwent a significant rebranding process. This transformation not only altered the visual aspects of the brand but also delved deep into its core identity and strategy. In this article, we will dissect the intricacies of this rebrand, exploring the reasons behind it, the strategic decisions made, and the implications for the company’s future.
If you’re a video/audio person, consider checking out the video that I filmed on this topic.
The Shift in Focus: Business to Business and Consumer Split
At the end of 2021, Johnson & Johnson made a strategic decision to split its conglomerate model into two distinct entities. The consumer products, including well-known brands like Tylenol, Johnson’s, and Band-Aid, were spun off into a separate company named Kenvue. This move was not isolated to Johnson & Johnson; In the last few years, we’ve seen many industry giants like GE, GSK, and 3M adopt a similar trend, emphasizing a focused approach in their business strategies. GE is spinning off into three distinct companies: GE Healthcare, GE Vernova, and GE Aerospace; GSK span off its consumer healthcare segment into a company now called Haleon. 3M recently announced it was also doing the same with its consumer healthcare business.
As the market shifts and values focused companies higher than those diversified, this trend won’t stop anytime soon. So, while Johnson & Johnson’s decision to spin attracted media coverage, the feedback was still good at the point of the spin-off announcement.
SpinCo: The Birth of Kenvue
For the new consumer healthcare products, the Kenvue brand was created for the parent company, encompassing various familiar products. This was because due to the spinoff, the new entity could no longer retain the name ‘Johnson & Johnson.’ In many of spin-off cases, and same with Johnson & Johnson, the trademark of the parent company (Johnson & Johnson, and most likely J&J and others) was kept in the RemainCo (remaining company). Thus, the SpinCo (spin company, Kenvue in this case) had to create a new brand, and Kenvue was born.
RemainCo: The Challenge for Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson as a RemainCo now covers two main segments: Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine and Johnson & Johnson MedTech. The decision to keep the Johnson & Johnson brand, despite its baggage of legal controversies, was rooted in its significant brand equity, valued at $6.13 billion in 2022. In fact, the brand was ranked as №92 of the world’s best brands (Interbrand).
The Johnson & Johnson brand is incredibly valuable, but there are also negative associations with the brand. For one, there were lawsuits filed against the company, some still being resolved today. Additionally, because the Johnson & Johnson brand was previously both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C), many associations with Johnson & Johnson still lay with the consumer healthcare products (the now Kenvue). Johnson & Johnson had to rebrand itself to shift perceptions and reintroduce itself as a technology and innovation company.
The Strategy Behind the Rebranded Visual Identities
Johnson & Johnson
From Johnson & Johnson’s press release:
The new logo is modernized for this next chapter. Each letter is drawn in one pen stroke, creating a contrast that delivers both a sense of unexpectedness and humanity. The Company will embrace both the long- and short-form versions of the logo, expanding and building more equity around a short-form ‘J&J’ to show up in a more personable, contemporary way — especially in digital interfaces. The brand will also show up in motion and respond to different environments.
Some of that makes sense to me — the short form J&J to be a little bit more personable and contemporary. I think it’s trying to balance technology, but not successfully. That note about the one pen stroke linking to humanity is a bit of a stretch. I would even say that it’s missing the humanity from the script logo that it had before. It’s definitely unexpected, I’ll give them that.
Johnson & Johnson will continue to leverage the color red, leaning into a refreshed, bright, and contemporary color that speaks to the ability to urgently respond to health challenges, evolve with the times and set the pace.
The new ampersand captures a caring, human nature. It now presents itself as a more globally recognizable symbol and represents the openness of the brand, as well as the connections that bring the Company’s purpose to life.
That’s just seeming like things that make it more of a holistic storytelling. It’s a question to whether we buy it or not. That new sans serif font that they’re leveraging for the wordmark is tied to a trend that we’ve seen throughout the past five years. Many brands have been actually moving away from that. For example, Burberry moved to a sans serif font previously. Now, they’re moving back to a sans serif wordmark. Although a sans serif font conveys more of a professional, technological look and feel, it’s more removed than not as personal. Healthcare is such a human and caring industry, it just comes off as though they’re distancing themselves from patient care. Removing themselves and creating distance from the closeness they had before. I’m uncertain if it’s a good move on that part.
Kenvue
On the other hand we see Kenvue — even though it also leverages a sans serif font for the the wordmark, the logo looks more personable. Its logo is made up of a symbol (the K) and a wordmark (Kenvue). In the symbol, yo see a heart, and overall the wordmark has a more sounded and organic shape to it. Contrasted with the sharp terminals, it makes for a more engaging logo. It’s friendlier. As a consumer of healthcare products, when you’re thinking about “pain” and the desire to relieve, it feels more like a brand that can help you, whereas the new Johnson and Johnson just feels like a cold pharmaceutical company.
The brand architecture decisions: Contrasting structures
For Johnson & Johnson, they’re deciding to unify the brand under a Monolithic strategy. They’re doubling down and building on the big and well known brand Johnson and Johnson is. Now, we see Johnson and Johnson Innovative Medicine and Johnson and Johnson MedTech as its two key segments. However, if you click into their brand and see on their website, within the MedTech segment you’ll see that there’s still many brands waiting to be rationalized. There’s CERENOVOS, Biosense Webster, and others that are employing an Endorsement approach. But, you also have other brands like ABIOMED that is employing an Independent brand approach. Additionally, there’s also Johnson and Johnson Vision that is still in the old script logo — a Sub-Brand approach. At the top in the first layer, Johnson & Johnson is a very strong Monolithic brand. However, if you investigate further into the second layer, you start to see all these brands that are awaiting rationalization. I believe J&J is moving towards a monolithic approach, but there are still a lot of opportunities to bring the family closer together.
Looking at Kenvue, it’s deciding to continue carrying all those product brands in their family, brands like Band-Aid and Tylenol. It’s very interesting to see the stark differencein architecture approaches. Johnson & Johnson is on one end of the spectrum with its Monolithic approach, Kenvue sits at the other end of the spectrum with an Independent approach. They’ve decided to not have any direct associations between the Kenvue parent brand to its product brands. This has its own pros and cons. Currently, the product brands have more awareness and recognition in the market right now. But, if this issue will be perpetuated because of the lack of connection between the Parent and Product Brands. Additionally, thinking about all the different brands that Kenvue has to govern. It’s going to require so much more investment — for separate marketing dollars, separate teams, separate distribution channels. From a consumer point of view, it’s beneficial because Kenvue is able to carve out a greater share of the market. When consumers visit the pharmacy, they see all those brands and will be under the impression it’s not one big company, but smaller brands. Given so, Kenvue will be able to occupy more of the counter space in stores.
It makes sense, and is certainly the case with many consumer brands, and Monolithic being the prominent case for many B2B brands. But, it’s just interesting to see the comparison.
Conclusion: The Balance Between Innovation and Compassion
The rebrand of J&J stirred many more negative feelings among audiences compared to Kenvue. Understanding its move to be perceived as technological and innovative, many found it cold and impersonal. The choice of wordmark typography was debated. The shift towards a more global, streamlined company image conflicted with the industry’s call for caring and personal patient-care.
In essence, Johnson & Johnson’s rebrand journey illustrates the delicate balance between innovation and compassion in the healthcare industry. While the company strives to portray itself as a leader in technology and pharmaceuticals, it must not lose sight of the warmth and empathy that define healthcare interactions. The true test lies in the test of time, where consumer perceptions and experiences will ultimately shape the success of this transformative endeavor.
