Mastercard dropped its name from its logo because the future of payment is digital (2024)
Mastercard is changing its logo. The interlocking red and yellow circles are here to stay, but Mastercard’s rebrand is missing something big: its name.
Raja Rajamannar, the company’s chief marketing and communications officer, told the Wall Street Journal that Mastercard conducted nearly two years of research to make sure people could identify its wordless logo. “Reinvention in the digital age calls for modern simplicity,” Rajamannar said in a statement announcing the change. “And with more than 80 percent of people spontaneously recognizing the Mastercard Symbol without the word ‘mastercard,’ we felt ready to take this next step into our brand evolution.”
Mastercard’s new, wordless logo isn’t just an attempt to convey that the company has become so ubiquitous that consumers recognize its branding even when its name is missing — it also suggests that the company is increasingly shifting its branding strategy in preparation for a post-credit card world where other forms of digital payment will reign supreme.
By changing its logo, Mastercard is attempting to align itself with other iconic brands that are so well-known they don’t need to be identified by words. “Mastercard has had the great fortune of being represented by two interlocking circles, one red, one yellow, since its founding in 1977,” Michael Beirut, a partner at the design firm Pentagram, which designed the new logo, said in a statement. “Now, by allowing this symbol to shine on its own, Mastercard enters an elite cadre of brands that are represented not by name, but by symbol: an apple, a target, a swoosh.”
But Apple and Target’s logos also happen to be their names. Zab Johnson, the executive director and senior fellow at the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative at the Wharton School, told me that the Mastercard logo may be too abstract for consumers to instinctively know what it represents.
“I would trust that they’ve done their research, but they’re relying heavily on the idea that people will have those associations just with the color and the simple shapes,” Johnson said. “I think that’s a little easier for logos to do when they’re less abstract, like Apple and Target, and even with Nike because the shape of it is so unique. We don’t really encounter a swoosh like that in any other context, but we do encounter a lot of circles — a lot of colored, slightly overlapping circles.”
And, Johnson noted, Mastercard’s rebrand is about more than a desire for a new logo. “Mastercard is using the word drop for something totally different — they’re trying to move away from the card aspect towards a more virtual financial space, where cards might not be the wave of the future,” she said. The company is, in effect, trying to drop the “card” from its name without actually changing its name.
Mastercard isn’t the first company to drop the name from its logo in order to convey a shifting business strategy.
Starbucks famously dropped its name from its logo in 2011, briefly angering fans in the process. The rebrand was about more than giving Starbucks cups a sleeker look — it was about expanding beyond the coffee business too. “Even though we have always been, and always will be, a coffee company and retailer, it’s possible we’ll have other products with our name and no coffee in it,” Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said at the time.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Beirut said the new Mastercard logo not only suggests that the company is about more than just credit cards, but also looks better on small digital devices. “You’re trying to optimize for a very small piece of real estate on a very small piece of glass,” he said. “It might not even be a mobile phone, it might be a watch face. Having to work in a 10-letter name in that is kind of a monster.”
The new Mastercard logo is, according to Beirut, easier to read on phones or digital watches. It’s also indicative of a world where people aren’t just using their phones or watches to check their credit card balances, but to pay for goods and services too.
Mastercard Inc. is removing its name from its logo in most contexts, leaving the interlocking red and yellow circles to represent the brand on cards, in stores, at events and in advertising. The move continues an effort to play down the “card” in “Mastercard” as new payment methods and technologies spread.
To reflect our readiness and optimism about the future, we introduced an evolution of our brand identity—simplified, modernized, and optimized for use in digital contexts.
As Pentagram writes of the early logo: “The overlapping forms effortlessly express the idea of connection, while the basic circular shapes suggest inclusiveness and accessibility, key to Mastercard's brand message of 'priceless possibilities. '”
The Mastercard symbol still has its core identity of the two red and yellow circles overlapping. That still conveys the brand message of connection, togetherness, and unity. The wordmark is in all lowercase because the brand did not want to emphasize the word 'card.
Your card may be declined for a number of reasons: the card has expired; you're over your credit limit; the card issuer sees suspicious activity that could be a sign of fraud; or a hotel, rental car company, or other business placed a block (or hold) on your card for its estimated total of your bill.
In 1979, Mastercard was formed. Before it was called Mastercard, the company was formed as The Interbank Card Association in 1967. It then rebranded itself as Master Charge in 1968 before its final change in 1979.
What is True Name by Mastercard? Mastercard True NameⓇ is a card feature that lets credit card users choose the first name that appears on their cards. It is meant for nonbinary and transgender people, and other members of the LGBTQIA+ community whose preferred or chosen name doesn't match their legal name.
What Is Mastercard? Mastercard is the second-largest payments network, ranked behind Visa, in the global payments industry. Other major payments networks include American Express and Discover. Mastercard partners with member financial institutions all over the world to offer Mastercard-branded network payment cards.
Merchants first brought this contentious class-action lawsuit against Visa, Mastercard and banks in 2005. They alleged the card network companies and banks have colluded to keep interchange fees inflated. Interchange fees are set by the card network companies.
The campaign features the tagline "There are some things money can't buy.For everything else, there's Mastercard," and focuses on the idea that some experiences in life are priceless and cannot be bought with money.
The ownership structure of Mastercard (MA) stock is a mix of institutional, retail and individual investors. Approximately 42.45% of the company's stock is owned by Institutional Investors, 10.77% is owned by Insiders and 46.78% is owned by Public Companies and Individual Investors.
The disadvantage of Mastercard is that their credit cards tend to offer fewer benefits than Visa cards, and Mastercard debit cards don't always provide full protection from ATM fraud. Still, owning a Mastercard has far more advantages than disadvantages.
If your bank switched a card from Visa to Mastercard, it was likely because they felt the features and benefits of Mastercard were better than those of Visa. For example, the issuer might take into consideration processing fees or network-level benefits like travel insurance or purchase protection.
As one of the biggest financial companies in the world, the Mastercard logo is globally recognised, that was until 2006, when they changed their infamous logo. What was once a straightforward and recognisable logo, became confusing and needlessly complicated. The design cost them a jaw dropping $1.5 million!
The complete color palette is built from scales surrounding the red and yellow of the logo. The use of warm greys, both dark and light, as the base for all compositions ensures neutrality. Orange is the new primary color, a perfect midpoint between red and yellow.
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