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Arnell Group followed-up the Pepsi rebranding with the disastrous Tropicana rebranding.

Reportedly, they paid Arnell $35M for the Tropicana rebrand. It made their product look like a generic store brand. Upon rollout, they reportedly lost as much as $20M a month. They reverted it soon after.[1]

Arnell's explanation for the failure was similarly whacky.[2]

Two years later, Arnell Group's parent company, Omnicom, fired Peter Arnell. Though that might have been for misconduct that had Newsweek comparing him to Harvey Weinstein way back in 2009.[3]

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20090226235602/http://industry.b...

[2]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arnells-explanation-of-failed-t...

[3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20120113061332/http://www.thedai...

This is certainly an extreme example, but I feel that most designers believe (and their management expects) in these sorts of design decision justifications. Designers need to sell their designs, and a large majority of the time there isn't enough actual thought to justify anything; it's just preference, or at the end of the day, there are lots of good enough solutions.

There is a significant problem in the design of performative work that provides little to no value. So much time is spent on "process" and "workshops" that yield nothing, yet design management rewards it. I've informally polled peers of designers, and the common view is that, depending on the designer, only 20-60% of what they do is of any actual value. I think the state of the design market reflects this. Designers need to engage in serious introspection and figure out which parts of their work are valuable and which are not. The industry has been discussing "proving our value" and "getting a seat at the table" for years. If we've been working on this for 15+ years but haven't achieved it, I think that shows something about the actual value design provides.

Source: I've worked as a product designer for 10+ years.

Counterpoint: Logo redesigns give management something to endlessly bikeshed about in meetings.
Oh my god so much this.

The number of times I have had this conversation:

1) "What do you think about name/logo X for Y?"

2) "You know I'm terrible with names/logos but yeah whatever I really don't care very much"

3) <Pause from days to weeks>

4) "Lawyers tell us that there is a trademark dispute/some other sort of problem with the name/logo"

5) "Huh, ok"

6) <Pause from days to weeks>

7) Go to step 1.

Then every now and again instead of step 1 you have the a branding workshop/brainstorming session/pitch from an agency, which is just step 1 on steroids.

It seems pretty likely this was an intentional leak meant as a viral outrage based advertising campaign. The content is not just ridiculous but also underdeveloped for someone who actually believed it. And since I'm now reading it here on HN I suppose it worked.
I don't think it was "outraged-based" as it was "ridicule-based". Like, who actually got angry over the Gravitational Pull of Pepsi that leads to Pepsi Proposition instead of just mocking it relentlessly?
Fair, but the point stands.
Maybe, but Arnell was rather eccentric and, by several accounts, had very much bought into his own BS.

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20120113061332/http://www.thedai...

[2]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-the-firing-of-weird-design-...

He sounds charming:

“ Arnell has been compared to movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, meaning you could fill a book with horror stories about his cruel behavior—screaming at people, even hitting them. "He has this remarkable capacity to be both the most intoxicating character—lovable, brilliant, seductively intellectual—and then turn on a dime and be staggeringly cruel," says a former business associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of alienating Arnell. This person recalls Arnell humiliating employees by making them get down and do push-ups in front of clients. "He is unencumbered with any sense of morality. Until you experience it firsthand, it's just completely and utterly unfathomable."”

Makes sense, psychopaths often have an innate gift for spinning bullshit and manipulating people into going along with it. He's in the perfect industry for this.
The original design (PDF) document is linked in the article.[0]

[0] - https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell...

If bullshitting was an art form, this is a high achievement.
From the linked "best logos of all time" article:

"The best logos are those that have truly stood the test of time. As well as being distinct and memorable, often with hidden meanings and messages ..."

The pepsi universe and energy fields stuff is obviously wack, but most people are blissfully unaware of the depth of meaning, connotations, references, messaging, etc, in many logos, emblems, and even design 'dna', all around them.

Most of it is bullshit.
it's mostly historical

please give an example of bs

Once you visualize it as a shirt lifting up over an overweight man’s belly, it’s unseeable forever. I’m sorry.
Exactly, i actually thought they'd changed it back but no, still overweight man belly: https://ogden_images.s3.amazonaws.com/www.utne.com/images/20...

One of the worst logo's in a long time, the font is also garbage.

A friend was at some sort of marketing conference when the logo redesign happened. They commented to a colleague that it looked like the logo redesign had just happened on a whim. Someone working for Pepsi marketing happened to overhear them and replied that that's exactly what had happened.
Was the design document really used to present the pepsi logo ? I always thought it was a joke :/
The new one makes them look like an oil company from the 70s.
Peter Arnell was the incompetent man who not only concocted the Pepsi logo, he also almost destroyed Tropicana. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arnells-explanation-of-failed-t...

The man ought to be inducted into the Dunning-Kruger Hall of Fame.

Not to pedestalize tech workers, but in my view we are still closer to say a carpenter, we accomplish things, make things, and the great ones also have an ethos, an aesthetic etc. as a bonus. Just like a great carpenter can also built a beautiful home.

The problem is the huge amount of people educated or nepo babied into positions with no actual foundation of "work", only fluffy business PDF's, design docs, leadership philosophy and endless workshop with no connection to the actual product, the actual user or the market, instead they float around in high society and write talk in endless streams of consciousness and do performance arts and rituals essentially.

That shitty site has so many ads it’s hard to locate the content
What if I told you...

puts on The Matrix sunglasses

The content is the ad

Those should be "They Live" sunglasses instead.
YYEEEEEAOOOOOOWWWWWWW
All that effort/bullshit, ruined by a few scribbles: https://clipartcraft.com/images/pepsi-logo-fat-man.png