Wolff Olins is a brand

Brand

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...

 consultancy, based in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and Dubai

Dubai

Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...

. It employs 150 designers, strategists and account managers, and has been part of the Omnicom Group

Omnicom Group

Omnicom Group is a holding company whose agencies provide marketing and communications services in the disciplines of advertising, customer relationship management , strategic media planning and buying, digital and interactive marketing, direct and promotional marketing, public relations and...

 since 2001.

History

Wolff Olins was founded in Camden Town

Camden Town

-Economy:In recent years, entertainment-related businesses and a Holiday Inn have moved into the area. A number of retail and food chain outlets have replaced independent shops driven out by high rents and redevelopment. Restaurants have thrived, with the variety of culinary traditions found in...

, London, in 1965 by designer Michael Wolff and advertising executive Wally Olins

Wally Olins

Wally Olins is a practitioner of Corporate identity and branding. Born 19 December, 1930.-Biography:Wally Olins is Chairman of Saffron Brand Consultants of London, Madrid, Mumbai and New York....

. Wolff left the business in 1983, and Olins in 2001, though both are still active in the field of branding. Over the years, Wolff Olins has opened offices in Hamburg, Paris, San Francisco, Madrid and Lisbon, all of which subsequently closed. In 1998, the company opened in New York, and ten years later in Dubai.

From 1965 to the early 1990s, Wolff Olins developed corporate identities for various large European companies. During this time Olins published The Corporate Personality (1978) and Corporate Identity (1989). Olins defined corporate identity

Corporate identity

In Corporate Communications, a corporate identity is the "persona" of a corporation which is designed to accord with and facilitate the attainment of business objectives...

 as "strategy made visible", and the firm worked with companies including BOC

The BOC Group

The BOC Group plc was the official name of the multinational industrial gas and British based company more commonly known as BOC, and now a part of The Linde Group. In September 2004, BOC had over 30,000 employees on six continents, with sales of over £4.6 billion. BOC was a constituent of the...

 (1967), Apple Records

Apple Records

Apple Records is a record label founded by The Beatles in 1968, as a division of Apple Corps Ltd. It was initially intended as a creative outlet for the Beatles, both as a group and individually, plus a selection of other artists including Mary Hopkin, James Taylor, Badfinger, and Billy Preston...

 (1968), Bovis (1971), Volkswagen

Volkswagen

Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and is the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, which now also owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, where it is...

's VAG (1978), 3i

3i

3i Group plc is a multinational private equity and venture capital company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It has offices in 13 countries across Asia, Europe and the Americas and had total assets under management of £12.7 billion as at 31 March 2011...

 (1983), Prudential

Prudential Financial

The Prudential Insurance Company of America , also known as Prudential Financial, Inc., is a Fortune Global 500 and Fortune 500 company whose subsidiaries provide insurance, investment management, and other financial products and services to both retail and institutional customers throughout the...

 (1986) and BT

BT Group

BT Group plc is a global telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in more than 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of...

 (1991).

From the 1990s onwards, Wolff Olins focused more on corporate branding. The company's branding work includes First Direct

First Direct

First Direct is a telephone and internet-based retail bank in the United Kingdom, a division of HSBC Bank plc. First Direct has headquarters in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, and has 1.16 million customers....

 (1989), Orange (1994), Heathrow Express

Heathrow Express

Heathrow Express is an airport rail link from London Heathrow Airport to London Paddington station in London operated by the Heathrow Express Operating Authority, a wholly owned subsidiary of BAA. It was opened by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998...

 (1998), Tata Group

Tata Group

Tata Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Tata Group is one of the largest companies in India by market capitalization and revenue. It has interests in communications and information technology, engineering, materials, services, energy,...

 (2000), GE

Gê

Gê are the people who spoke Ge languages of the northern South American Caribbean coast and Brazil. In Brazil the Gê were found in Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Bahia, Piaui, Mato Grosso, Goias, Tocantins, Maranhão, and as far south as Paraguay....

 (2004), Unilever

Unilever

Unilever is a British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products....

 (2004), Macmillan Cancer Support

Macmillan Cancer Support

Macmillan Cancer Support is one of the largest British charities and provides specialist health care, information and financial support to people affected by cancer....

 (2006), Product Red

Product Red

Product Red, styled as RED, is a brand licensed to partner companies such as Nike, American Express , Apple Inc., Starbucks, Converse, Bugaboo, Penguin Classics , Gap, Emporio Armani, Hallmark and Dell...

 (2006), Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB is a joint venture established on October 1, 2001 by the Japanese consumer electronics company Sony Corporation and the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson to manufacture mobile phones....

 (2006), the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (2007), the New York City brand (2007), Tata DoCoMo

Tata DoCoMo

TATA DoCoMo, referred to as DoCoMo , is a Tata Teleservices Limited owned cellular service provider on the GSM and CDMA platform-arising out of the Tata Group's strategic joint venture with Japanese telecom giant NTT Docomo in November 2008...

 (2009), AOL

AOL

AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

 (2009) and the rebranding of PricewaterhouseCoopers

PricewaterhouseCoopers

PricewaterhouseCoopers is a global professional services firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest professional services firm measured by revenues and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms....

 (2010).

Criticism

Throughout its history, Wolff Olins has presented controversial work. Its piper design for BT in 1991 attracted a great deal of opposition.The company was also responsible for the short-lived $110m (£75m) re-branding of PwC Consulting to Monday in 2002. The launch of the London 2012 brand in 2007 was met with widespread public derision in the UK, being called anything from a colossal waste of £400,000 to a pornographic representation of the character Lisa Simpson

Lisa Simpson

Lisa Marie Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. Voiced by Yeardley Smith, Lisa first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Cartoonist Matt Groening...

.