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For the first time in its 28-year history, MTV has updated its iconic logo. Largely forgoing the network's music heritage, the new three-dimensional design instead showcases MTV's reality-TV talent, such as the casts of "Jersey Shore," "The Buried Life" and "Teen Mom." But is a new look enough for the struggling Viacom brand?
Heading into fourth-quarter 2009, MTV was in the midst of a multi-year ratings and revenue decline, with third-quarter ratings alone down about 5% from the year prior, enough to rank the network No. 24 in total viewers during prime-time and 26 during total day.

It's those recent successes that MTV general manager Stephen Friedman most wants to represent in its on-air creative, rather than the music-centric brand of the past.

"Music is still at the center of so much of what we do, but we've really expanded what that means," he said. "We needed the logo to be flexible enough to have the artists within it but also the stars of our shows. It's an updating that speaks to this audience in a much simpler, bolder way."

Mr. Friedman said MTV has also had a problem with brand recognition among viewers who would love certain shows but had no idea they aired on MTV. "The way the logo frames it makes it a simple reference point," he said.

Tina Exharos, MTV's exec VP-marketing, said the logo redesign has been bandied about for the last 10 years among the network's internal design staff. "We've been so lucky at the MTV because the logo became so iconic very quickly that we were reluctant to mess with it at all," he said. "But these past few years our entire brand DNA has been built on this evolution, so it just felt like it was the right time."

The logo redesign was a complete re-drawing of the original "M" logo, with subtle but notable changes like an open "V" and of course a blank canvas for images of any MTV reality talent or popular music artist to be inserted. All creative decisions were handled in-house, and MTV did not consult with any external agencies during the redesign. Nor does it work with external agencies for its off-channel marketing, which is also handled in-house.

"The MTV brand, to me, stands for such an irreverent groundbreaking brand, and unfortunately I feel a little underwhelmed when I look at this," said Hamish McLennan, global chairman-CEO of Young & Rubicam. "It feels like it could be a fashion shoot, and I think it's lost its out-of-the box character and heritage. It was an irreverent brand but now it's very mainstream."