Wow, $100 million USD for the Accenture logo is baffling to me. I'm guessing there must be more being delivered behind the scenes that just the image. Anyone with experience in this area care to elaborate on how they come up with these prices?
There was significantly more behind the scenes. It would be very similar to what PwC just paid for (rebranding from PriceWaterhouseCoopers) [1].
Accenture was a rebrand of Andersen Consulting, the consulting division of Arthur Andersen, the large accountancy. The Big-5 accountancy gave them their entire brand position, so the creation of the Accenture logo involved all of the campaigns for them to emerge, not just the logo or mark. This is also why their ads are in every airport—the brand identify had to be built from scratch. For Accenture, it ended up being exceptional timing, considering the Enron scandal would emerge in a year or so and end up destroying Arthur Andersen.
Most of the accountancies examined spinning out their consulting divisions, similar to Accenture. I wouldn't say the results were as successful as Accenture for those that chose to rebrand. E&Y sold their group to Cap Gemini, becoming Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, and eventually just Capgemini. PwC was going to spin out their division as "Monday", but instead ended up selling the group to IBM (only to eventually restart again). KPMG had BearingPoint, which eventually went bankrupt. Deloitte contemplated rebranding their consulting group as Braxton, but it never happened.
Physical changeover of signage at all sites with the logo is another big cost. It usually must all be done at around the same time which often means higher after hours costs. For BP, this means all of their petrol stations.
Not to mention letterheads, business cards, envelopes, labels, internal paper forms. Both the sign and the printing industry benefit when a company rebrands.
