The new brand image introduced by Deutsche Bahn appears to be facing widespread internal resistance from its own staff. According to comments and replies cited by “Handelsblatt” from the company intranet, the relaunch has been overwhelmingly critical for 17 days, accumulating over 480 messages.
Deutsche Bahn unveiled its new corporate appearance on September 1st. The central element of this redesign is the new brand personality, “The Doers” (Die Macher:innen), which is meant to represent its own employees. Communications Head Jens-Oliver Voß had officially announced the relaunch internally on August 25th, stating that the company needed to evolve past its previous image and become an organization that people could be proud of. This new appearance was intended to “give a face” to the company’s transformation, and a unified design, it was claimed, would “dramatically lower costs.”
However, the opposition began on the same morning. One employee wrote that the redesign would not reduce costs at all, while another staff member from the marketing department remarked that what the company truly needed was “functional trains, not another redesign.”
Deutsche Bahn did not disclose the actual cost of the new appearance. Internally, the design was described as having been developed for a very small amount of money, though the corporation declined to provide a figure. It is worth noting that the railway had spent 386 million Euros over the past three years on advertising and sales promotion.
