In the immortal words of Mel Brooks as Yogurt in Spaceballs, "MERCHANDISING!" It's everything to a brand, as it's the way that your customers interact with your company the most. Even more so than the actual products. So you have to get it right in order to keep your company, and its products, in those customers' and potential customers' minds.
It's why you can picture the iconic Nike "swoosh" by me just writing it, and you reading those words.
Honda's powersports business has a similarly noteworthy logo, and it's on all sorts of merchandising the brand produces. The "wing" logo is across the brand's products and gear, and has remained fairly steady throughout its run. But in the ever-changing world of product lineups, and the introduction of EVs throughout, Honda thought it necessary to further differentiate the products. To give more weight to that "Merchandising!" effect.
That's why the brand will now have three different logos. But I don't know if Yogurt would think that's necessarily a good idea.
According to the brand, "Honda will unify the product mark for electric motorcycles to “Honda” in new font while continuing to use its traditional Wing mark for internal combustion engine (ICE) motorcycles. Additionally, the product emblem appearing on the body of ICE FUN products will undergo a design change. It will be newly adopted as the “Honda Flagship WING” emblem for flagship models (e.g. CBR1000RR-R Fireblade, Rebel 1100, etc) of product brands such as CBR, Gold Wing and Rebel."
To break that down, Honda will now have three different motorcycle logos. There will be the traditional wing emblem on internal combustion motorcycles, a redesigned wing logo for the "flagship" motorcycles to denote their specialness, and a strict "Honda" script for its EV motorcycles. Again, brand awareness is everything, as it's the most common way folks interact with a company. But here's where I need to say that I'm not sure this works for Honda.
EV motorcycles are incredibly difficult sells for much of the world, at least outside of scooters in city centers. They just don't capture the imagination, nor have the range, to compete yet with internal combustion, much to the chagrin of the planet and its inhabitants. And having the EVs be their own separate thing, outside of all the storied history of Honda's motorcycles, feels like an easy way to set them up for failure. And add that the logo is basically the automotive logo and doesn't denote between the two and you're likely going to end up with a lot of confused customers.
I, personally, think it would've been a better idea had Honda just stuck with the same wing logo for everything. But, hey, I'm just a lowly writer monkey, not some big, fancy corporate synergist executive...
