The last time Walmart refreshed its brand, the Great Recession loomed large, the iPhone was only a yr old and a hyphen still split the retailer’s legal name. On Monday (Jan. 13), the big-box store unveiled the latest update to its visual identity, one meant to embrace the growing role that digital and cross-channel capabilities play in an industry that has seen its makeup altered by technology over the past twenty years.
“It’s more about aligning the visual expression with how the brand has evolved since 2008,” said David Hartman, Walmart’s vp of creative, of the changes. “What which means, in a more practical sense, is basically establishing ourself as truly an omnichannel retailer versus only a brick-and-mortar retailer and having the ability to serve the shopper regardless of where or how they need to come across the brand.”
Included within the 2025 refresh are more vibrant yellows and blues (technically True Blue and Spark Yellow), a bigger emphasis on the sunburst-like “spark” icon Walmart implemented in 2008 and a brand new wordmark echoing one found on a trucker hat incessantly sported by company founder Sam Walton, including on the quilt of his book, “Made in America.” The Walton nod was inspired by Hartman’s team at Walmart Creative Studio taking a deep dive into the company archives to search out something that might connect heritage to the brand’s current vision. The recent typography is a custom design based on the font Antique Olive that Walmart is looking Everyday Sans.
“There is a fantastic, unique origin story about that typeface, its roots in our past and the way we’re bringing it forward to represent the brand where it’s today,” said Hartman.
Central to Walmart’s refresh is a bigger emphasis on its spark logo as a standalone piece of iconography.
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The Walmart spark appears largely the identical as before but will play a special role in branding, with wider separation from the Walmart name on assets like storefronts. It’s a move intended to bolster the emblem’s status as a standalone symbol that may shore up Walmart’s brand equity, in response to Hartman. Other retailers have created easy visual shorthands for his or her brands, equivalent to Target’s bullseye or the Amazon smile.
Jones Knowles Ritchie assisted with Walmart’s brand identity overhaul while Landor partnered on points like store executions. Publicis Groupe handles core marketing and promoting services.
Digital-first evolution
While Walmart’s makeover is probably less dramatic than some past tweaks, equivalent to ditching its hyphen and bowing the spark, it speaks to changing priorities for an organization traditionally known for sprawling superstores.
“It’s not a wholesale reinvention of the Walmart identity. It’s very much an evolution versus a revolution,” said Hartman.
Walmart’s deal with digital has accelerated for the reason that launch of membership service Walmart+ in 2020, a response to Amazon, and the larger consumer gravitation toward online shopping, which has supported the firm’s bigger crack into areas like selling promoting.
Walmart’s e-commerce sales within the U.S. were up 22% in Q3 2024, extending a run that has dazzled investors. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is an adage that might generally apply to brand marketing, but the corporate still saw points of its appearance where modernization felt essential and spent the past year-plus hashing out what those changes should appear to be.
In a press statement, Walmart U.S. CMO William White described a goal of becoming an “inspirational, digital retailer,” comments echoed elsewhere within the refresh announcement.
“The updated brand identity will help Walmart construct credibility and connection, turn into known for its convenient digital-first services and be seen as a more modern, culturally dynamic brand,” states a press release.
Vying for vibrancy
On the brick-and-mortar front, Walmart is introducing full-colored illustrated murals into store locations so as to add a pop of storytelling and aid customers in navigating different departments, a shift away from a previous system that relied on icons and line work. Some of those elements have been present at Walmart’s experimental Store 4108 in Springdale, Arkansas, since October, but will roll out more widely within the months ahead.
“We’ve heard from customers who’re shopping in that [4108] store and the shop associates that it’s really helped improve the general customer experience,” said Hartman. “Customers describe it as feeling more warm and more inviting after they enter the shop.”
An illustrated mural decorates the vestibule of a Walmart location.
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The embrace of elaborate, brighter visuals is an element of a bigger industry shift away from the minimalism that underpinned many branding efforts throughout the 2010s. For a rebrand in 2023, Pepsi introduced electric blues and deeper blacks, a special wordmark and ornamental packaging that pivoted away from a previous deal with simplicity.
In other areas, Walmart’s aim is to deliver greater consistency and a user-friendly experience across channels like its app and Walmart.com, a few of the earliest places where the refresh will go live. A modular grid system for browsing will display product images, photography and headlines, amongst other tweaks to what Hartman termed Walmart’s “brand operating system.”
“When [consumers] encounter the brand on the app, what they see from a product expression and a brand identity looks very similar or near the identical as what they see in our marketing and what they see in our store experience,” said Hartman of the refresh. “When you consider digital and omnichannel, we need to make those visual connections as tight as we possibly can so it seems like a seamless experience to the shopper.”
The recent search for Walmart will factor into its Q1 marketing campaign and activations, Hartman said, without offering specifics.
“We’re going to be very strategic about what assets get transferred and when,” added Hartman. “It’s not going to be an overnight change. It’ll definitely be something that happens over time.”
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