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Wal-Mart, the company we love to hate, has spun off a new supermarket brand to compete with in increasingly-cluttered retail food arena of California and the West. Under the forgettable name Marketside, Wal-Mart hopes to appeal to the heathy and happy set — those who don’t want to buy their groceries from the same place car batteries are sold.

Marketside is the platform into which Wal-Mart hopes to expand its own brand lines, and of course to take market share from Safeway, and Tesco’s Fresh and Easy. FT.com has more info.

Susan from brandcurve.com optimistically called the logo “clean and appropriate.” I’m afraid in my eyes it’s more boring and pedestrian. That blocky lower-case Gill Sans is as overused as it is inoffensive. And the stacked fruit icon simply baffles me. Have you ever seen stacked fruit … ever? While green makes sense as a grocery chain, their choice of colour reminds us more of those acid-coloured shirts from the 80s rather than a farmer’s market. In fact, it seems closer to Wal-Mart’s British acquisition, ASDA, than the old homegrown version. Where’s the red, white, and blue?

I have to remark that for better or for worse Wal-Mart is a dubious national brand. It’s become as American as Ford and GM and Exxon, in that evil corporate kinda way. Therefore, any attempt by this corporation to be friendly, green, local, and otherwise smalltownish will seem insincere, or worst, downright insulting. Can a brand with as much baggage as Wal-Mart change their image simply by opening a spin-off chain?

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