BY Christian Palino

CVRD Drills Down To Vale

With the recent acquisition of Candian company Inco, CVRD (Companhia Vale do Rio Doce) has become the world’s second largest mining company, named Vale — even if, colloquially, it was already referred to as such to shorten the mouthful. While the legal name stays the same, this name change is more of a pruning of the original name — leaving us with the portuguese word for valley. And of course with a new name comes a new logo.

By promoting its positioning and values — the quality of its products, ethics and social and environmental responsibility, the effort to contribute for the development of employees and the communities where it acts as well as the commitment to sustainable development — the company intends to differentiate itself in the mining market.

The project does not consider changing the name of the company, but reinforces the word “Vale”, unifying its use in all markets where it operates. The idea is to encourage all business units to abandon the expressions “Companhia Vale do Rio Doce”, “Rio Doce” or the acronym CVRD.

In public communications, it will highlight the fact that Vale produces essential ingredients for daily life, supplying, with its iron ore production, the raw material for several products like computers, watches or stoves. This way, the Vale brand will be closer to people.
— Vale Press Release

Under this initiative, Inco will now be known as “Vale Inco” and subsidiaries found under the same corporate umbrella will receive name changes such as the shift from Voisey’s Bay Nickel Co. to the new Vale Inco Newfoundland and Labrador Ltd. The rebrand was handled by Lippincort Mercer (another company that recently chose to truncate its name!) and the Brazilian company Cauduro Martino.

This is a great corporate rebranding. The name shift is excellent, it’s succinct, focused and contextually on-target, and in fact many in Brazil already referred to the company by this name. The logo mark itself — a V monogram that calls to mind a landscape, a drill head, a circular motion — is strong and elegant in the same gesture. The color palette (although similar to ABN Amro as some have expressed) is suitable and visually ownable in their sector. Even the subtle nuances to the typography help to liven up and add a bit of ownership to a rather dry, san serif corporate standard. In addition, it’s great to see a company put more rebranding focus on their local/national roots rather than their worldliness — even as they become a larger global player in their industry.

There is the argument that large corporations that don’t deal much with the traditional business-to-consumer space need not pay as much attention to their visual design, and those talking directly to consumers do. I am not arguing this, but I will say that it’s a relief, and a bit ironic, when we see more and more rebranding initiatives miss the mark in the consumer sector to see a corporate company in the business-to-business space step up to the plate and knock one out of the design park. Great work.

The Vale site in english, the Vale Inco site, and Vale’s complete press release on the rebranding.

[Ed’s Note: We are a little late on this one. It sat on my inbox far too long, but it definitely deserved its moment in the spotlight. Armin]

\n\nWith the recent acquisition of Candian company Inco, CVRD (Companhia Vale do Rio Doce) has become the world's second largest mining company, named Vale — even if, colloquially, it was already referred to as such to shorten the mouthful. While the legal name stays the same, this name change is more of a pruning of the original name — leaving us with the portuguese word for valley. And of course with a new name comes a new logo.

Many thanks to our ADV @ UnderConsideration Partners