News

A&W ... er AW ... gets a little 'and-sy' over logo

January 31, 2019

As the brand turns 100 this year, A&W Restaurants is lightening up a bit by losing its logos ampersand, at least for a while. The root-beer-renowned chain has dropped the symbol — commonly used to represent the word, "and," from its logo largely due to the challenges it presents in a digital word, which demands a spelled-out rendition of the word.

To call attention to this ampersand-less logo change, the chain has opened up a petition on Change.org, asking major dictionary publishers and social media decision makers to put ampersand in their "alphabets" to eliminate the problems the symbol presents when converting logos with the squiggly little sign in them into some for for online usage. 

In fact, the now AW brand's Vice President of Marketing argues that ampersand belongs in the alphabet anyway, because that's where it used to be. 

 "The internet has not been kind to this centuries-old symbol of unity," Mueller said in the release, noting that  the symbol reportedly dates to 45 years after the birth of Christ when it once was part of the alphabet. "Have you ever tried to use one in a hash tag? Or a URL? It doesn't work, which has become problematic for many brands."  

A&W,  er AW, said it has identified thousands of other companies and organizations that likely experience ampersand dysfunction and would benefit from change. 

"We're doing this for everyone that loves the ampersand and all of the companies like ours that proudly display it in their names and logos," Mueller said. "Its exclusion has made all of our lives a little harder. 'AandW.com' is clunky and ugly. The Twitter handle '@aandwrestaurants' looks ridiculous. '#A&W' is read by computers as just one lonely #A. Sometimes using an '&' just makes a lot more sense."

The ampersand-less logo the chain is currently using is its form of protest, it says, after confused and curious fans called the change out when posted on the brand's website. 

 "It's time to restore the ampersand to the alphabet and practical use, and the change.org petition is our way of signaling this to the powers that be," Mueller added. "Our website home page will remain ampersand-free until we reach our goal of 10,000 petition signatures, until some dictionary somewhere hears our plea or until National Root Beer Float Day, Aug. 6."

The brand turns 100 this year and now has 1,000 locations worldwide.