the warning sign of lowercase letters.

 I see that Target has changed its logo now. I think the company may be in trouble. 

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I've noticed that companies go to the lowercase letters when they are getting a rapacious image and want to look friendly again. Uppercase letters look dynamic and effective, but when your reputation turns from dynamic and effective to vicious and ruthless, it's time to break out the wee little letters.

we're your friend! we're here to help!

A few years back Walmart (then WAL*MART) was getting all kinds of bad press, for poor treatment of employees, ruining downtowns and mom & pop shops, killing U.S. manufacturing with a flood of cheap stuff from China, etc. They deployed a smiley face in their commercials, but it didn't help. Then they did this, and you hardly hear a complaint anymore. 

Citibank has been the home of many scandals over the years, but one that got a lot of press was when the bank was "involved in one of the biggest corporate scandals in United States history when it was accused of helping Enron disguise debt and agreed to pay $101 million to settle charges relating to the Enron fraud case," as HuffPost reported. And what did Citibank do about it? 

Yahoo! went from being a hotshot Internet stock to barely holding on for dear life. A series of terrible data breaches in the '10s was end of Marissa Mayer's career as CEO. What little rep Yahoo! had since its days as Chat Room King (remember those?) was swirling in the toilet. But don't worry; everything's under control!

I have to note that the lowercase rule does not apply to companies that have used lowercase from their founding, like Amazon and Google. They were early responders to the modern age of infantilization of consumers. Plus, they wanted to pillage from the get-go.

Has Target had any big scandals? Not lately that I know of, but for some data breaches and their expensive failure to launch in Canada. Maybe something is waiting in the wings and the logo change was preemptive. If your bank or investment company goes to a lowercase logo without warning, beware! 

I'm not sure how well this lowercase thing will work in the case of Yahoo! or Target, but it seems to have done fine for Citi and Walmart. Then again, in the case of some companies, nothing really seems to help....