Opinion BY Armin

Land O’Lame

What do butter and pet food have in common? Other than a number of mystery ingredients, in this case, they have in common that two of the most popular brands for each of those products — Land O’Lakes butter and Purina — are owned by the same corporation, Land O’Lakes, Inc., a 9,000 employee, member-owned co-op with more than 4,000 members established in 1921. Beyond the well-known consumer products, Land O’Lakes — I was tempted to abbreviate it as LOL but that would just be too distracting — is “the third-largest farm seed business and #1 distributor of crop protection products in the U.S.” as well as providing business development services to its members, and other businesses like transportation. Needless to say, it has an impact in the dairy and agricultural industries. Earlier in 2009, Land O’Lakes introduced a new corporate identity designed by Olson.

Logo for consumer products, which does not change.

The old wordmark was plain and very corporate, but it did a nice job in integrating the geometric circle “O” from its consumer logo within the otherwise slim Univers Condensed. While the new logo retains that same idea, there is little else positive that can be said about it. The rest of the wordmark is cold and harsh and that wobbly “S” is too distracting. On top of that there is a new icon. Excuse me, a terrible new icon. I imagine the logo is supposed to be an “L,” and “O” as the middle dot, and another “L” upside down. Either that, or I’m just looking for shapes in clouds. The icon is clumsy and about four or five decades too out of fashion. The gradients are more unnecessary than usual and the overall color scheme is too generic to be memorable.

Growing Together company magazine, left, and brochure.

One last detail that makes this identity fall short is in the execution of the company’s tag line (and internal magazine title): Growing Together. It’s missing the dot over the “i”. It comes across as a desperate need to appear trendy. I wish I could be more positive about this whole thing, but it’s sad to see such a weak identity for a well positioned company.

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What do butter and pet food have in common? Other than a number of mystery ingredients, in this case, they have in common that two of the most popular brands for each of those products — Land O'Lakes butter and Purina — are owned by the same corporation, Land O'Lakes, Inc., a 9,000 employee, member-owned co-op with more than 4,000 members established in 1921. Beyond the well-known consumer products, Land O'Lakes — I was tempted to abbreviate it as LOL but that would just be too distracting — is \"the third-largest farm seed business and #1 distributor of crop protection products in the U.S.\" as well as providing business development services to its members, and other businesses like transportation. Needless to say, it has an impact in the dairy and agricultural industries. Earlier in 2009, Land O'Lakes introduced a new corporate identity designed by Olson.

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