Bellboys are not just for hotels: Gandour gets a new logo.

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And the saga continues, during the last 18 months so many Lebanese institutions have rebranded, Crepaway changed its selling line, whereas Matta, Boubouffe, LBC, Enoteca, Credit Bank, Debbane, and Malak el Tawouk all changed their logos. Now comes the turn of Gandour.
My immediate first impression was that, had the Starbucks mermaid and Wendy been a lesbian couple, this would be their love child. The logo is quite fine graphically, could work on different backgrounds, retains some elements from the Gandour evolution (the banner, the bellboy to whom two of the previous logos alluded to but never graphically shown clearly) and is being sold as: "The key objective was to create a new iconic brand marque for Gandour, capturing the essence of the company in a simple, yet modern way. The new brand marque needed to present Gandour as a contemporary company but without alienating existing customers and stake holders" - which is a bit confusing considering bellboys allude more to the retro eras and glitzy in-between the two great wars decades (somewhere between Charleston follies and trente glorieuses) much more than "contemporary company". Still visually the logo works (apart from the mouth expression - is he happy, surprised, or what?)
Now the bad news?
What Gandour needs more than anything else is a coherent communication strategy which is completely inconsistent (after rolling a beautiful TV Unica ad, and a lovely Tarboush campaign, we ended with two horrible Dabke and Unica billboards!). Their visual presence is a hit or a miss, so I am not sure getting a new logo was the top prority.