Rule Number One of branding is: consistency, consistency, consistency. A brand has to have the same appearance whenever someone sees it -- that's how it gets programmed into people's heads. Violate the brand and conventional wisdom says you’ll lose your audience recognition. For example, you wouldn’t see a Coke logo that’s blue, nor its Coca-Coca wordmark in anything but script. Nobody breaks the rule; it just isn’t done.

Well, somebody did. A recent Valleywag post faulted Yahoo for high crimes against its own brand (emphasis mine):

Racing to reach markets before its rivals established themselves, Yahoo started dozens of country-specific websites with a frenzy of joint ventures in the 1990s. Its haste still haunts it; Yahoo's international websites may cater to local preferences, but at the cost of consistent branding.

Look at this collection of Yahoo logos. Is the Yahoo logo red, or purple? Reversed out, or solid? Mirrored shadow underneath? Take your pick of stylized designs; somewhere in the world, Yahoo has it.

In the classical marketing view, then, consistent branding trumps “local preferences”. (Doesn’t that phrase sound derogatory? Like “community organizer”) That’s fine for American soft drinks, perhaps, but is it also true when it comes to more flexible, truly global products, like Yahoo?

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Since they were acquired by Yahoo, Flickr has implemented a censorship scheme that is so poorly thought out, it’s offensive.

If you use Flickr, you are obligated to tag anything in your photostream which might be offensive. Later (at night, while you are sleeping, no doubt-- like the tooth fairy, but with uncompromising moral fiber), someone at Flickr will look at your account and verify that you have correctly tagged your offensive images. If you do not do this, or Flickr disagrees with your self-policing, your account is labeled as ‘unsafe’. Oh, and anyone else can decide to come along later and tag your images as offensive, too. Presumably, this could render you ‘unsafe’, as well.

I give them credit for making the whole scheme usable on their site, but the underlying logic is flawed. I would need a chart to graph the *numerous* ways this could potentially get under people's skin. Indeed, this is a no-win for Flickr.

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