In its new brand identity, Steiff shines a spotlight on the teddy bear

Frankfurt, 12.5.2022

This year, the teddy bear – the cuddly companion that stands for the Steiff brand like no other – is celebrating its 120th birthday. Margarete Steiff GmbH is honoring its most famous representative with a new visual identity that puts a stylized teddy bear on center stage. The new look was developed by the brand and design agency Peter Schmidt Group.

The teddy bear that made the Steiff brand a household name around the world – the iconic teddy bear with a "button in ear" as a seal of quality, to be precise – will feature prominently in the Steiff logo beginning in 2022. The strategic consultants from Batten & Company who are advising Steiff on its re-positioning effort conducted extensive market research and found that nearly all respondents automatically associate the name Steiff with teddy bears. This strong connection between the brand and its absolute best-selling product for more than 100 years will now be visible in the company's logo. Reduced to its essential features, the friendly black-and-white likeness of a teddy bear's head will appear above the familiar logotype, where it immediately invokes empathy and childhood memories. The white circle in the bear's ear signifies Steiff's second pioneering innovation – the “button in ear” that has served as a unique seal of authenticity on all the products the company has made since 1904.

“Like no other stuffed animal, teddy bears have become associated with the Steiff brand. Teddy bears symbolize everything the brand stands for. They’re a loveable companion for children, invested with genuine emotions and precious memories. From the outset and to this day we have made them with the greatest care and attention to detail, so they often remain with their owners for a lifetime,” said Dirk Petermann, CEO of Margarete Steiff GmbH. “Our new logo is a visible representation of what makes Steiff unmistakable.”

For the designers, it was important for all the brand elements to radiate precisely the same quality of craftsmanship that characterizes Steiff products. They responded to the modern understanding of premium quality and met the demands of the digital age by optimizing the familiar lettering without diminishing its recognition value. It has been slightly straightened, and the larger counters afford enhanced sharpness in small sizes on digital applications. The small tagline “Since 1880” emphasizes the brand’s long and successful history. The new logo is combined with a pallet of muted pastel tones, and body copy is set in the Bodoni and Work Sans typefaces.

But the new brand identity entails much more than just a new logo. “During the strategic brand work, we focused on a clear definition of our values and our purpose, in order to enable people to experience Steiff’s premium quality consistently across all of the brand’s touchpoints,” said Maike Sobek, chief marketing officer at Margarete Steiff GmbH.

“The teddy bear made Margarete Steiff GmbH an iconic global brand,” added Ruediger Goetz, managing director of Peter Schmidt Group. “The new look is an expression of empathy for the values of the brand, and stands for heritage, childhood dreams, and outstanding premium quality.”

The prominent appearance of the teddy bear as the protagonist of the visual identity stands for the fact that both gift-givers and collectors – to say nothing of parents, grandparents and generations of children – can rely on high-quality originals made with love, always combined with the feeling of something extraordinary.

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