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Do IT this week: Layering
YRC creates design to integrate trucking companies; brand names to eventually change
By Jim Mackinnon
Beacon Journal business writer
Published on Saturday, Jan 24, 2009
The trucks and trailers for Akron-based Roadway and Yellow Transportation will soon sport a new, supplemental logo: YRC.
And at some point — the parent company won't say when — the Roadway and Yellow names will be replaced by YRC.
YRC Worldwide Inc. on Friday said YRC will be the brand name for the reorganized trucking network for Yellow Transportation and Roadway.
The newly designed YRC logo, about six months in development, will be made up of something borrowed and something blue — the orange color of Yellow and the blue of Roadway.
The highly prominent YRC logo will appear alongside the traditional logos on Roadway and Yellow trucks as the two brands, once fierce competitors, become even more intertwined. The former Yellow Corp. bought Roadway in 2003 for $1.1 billion, creating one of the world's largest transportation services companies, YRC Worldwide.
''The visual identity for YRC features the highly recog
nized and trusted orange of Yellow and blue of Roadway,'' Greg Reid, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for YRC Worldwide, said in a prepared statement. ''Customers will still see the familiar Roadway and Yellow marks as we transition branding elements.''
Reid said in a separate interview that the ''heritage brands'' of Roadway and Yellow will be around for a while, because those names are still stronger in the marketplace than YRC.
But the company expects that to change as its customers become used to seeing and hearing the YRC name, he said.
And at some point, Roadway and Yellow will become YRC.
''We want to be very, very careful,'' Reid said. ''It takes time. It's hard to predict when that will be.''
The two trucking companies overlap in terms of what their respective customers expect from a transportation and delivery brand, Reid said. Customers typically begin preferring one brand over another, which is why YRC Worldwide is moving carefully on rolling out the new YRC brand, he said.
What the company wants its customers to know is that they can be confident in YRC services, he said.
''A brand is not an identity,'' Reid said. ''A brand is a promise, a promise in the marketplace. Visual identity is just one part of what makes up a successful brand.''
The beleaguered Overland Park, Kan.-based trucking company, which has been slammed by the recession and the record-high fuel prices of last year, said it is ahead of schedule in integrating its national network by early spring.
Shares rose 5 cents to close at $3.53 on Friday. Shares are up 23 percent since Jan. 1, but are down 81.1 percent from a year ago.
YRC Worldwide said it will debut a new customer Web site soon. People who use Roadway.com and My.Roadway.com will automatically be directed to yrc.com in February. Customers who use the MyYellow site will be directed to the new site in March.
Once the integration is finished, the combined network will have about 450 YRC service centers, or nearly 100 more centers than the individual Roadway and Yellow networks, the company said in a release.
The redesign is aimed at putting YRC facilities 20 percent closer to customers in major metropolitan areas to speed up pickups and deliveries and to reduce fuel usage.
Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com.
The trucks and trailers for Akron-based Roadway and Yellow Transportation will soon sport a new, supplemental logo: YRC.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Posted 10:15 AM, 01/24/2009
And I'm sure that this merger resulted in smiles by executives and promises to shareholders to "consolidate operations while taking advantage of opportunities to reduce OpEx".
The net/net is, now even more people are out of work, or delivering pizzas to each other.
Perhaps a shareholder or two somewhere will have the guts to publicly insist on establishing corporate priorities which do not focus completely on maximizing profits/minimizing expenses? Could there possibly be an advantage to America, to our economy, to our children, for some degree of social responsibility from companies such as YRC, IBM, Dell, and on and on?
I'm tired of these executives bleeding the lifeblood out of America; padding their portfolios at the expense of our country's economic future. All in the pursuit of their early retirements.
There needs to be federal intervention. Obviously.
Disgusting!
Posted 08:45 PM, 01/24/2009
YRC needs to focus on sales, stock price, and the 10% pay cut emplyees had to take rather then spending/wasting money on painting new logos on trucks. How much money did YRC spend/waste with a marketing firm to come up with this new brain child? Why doesn't the ABJ report on YRC outsourcing jobs to India?????
Posted 11:05 PM, 01/24/2009
Since Roadway had 7700 employees in 1992 and 465 now,how about a new logo? SEEYA' IN KANSAS CITY
