UPDATE: Aug, 15, 2022: Wish today (Aug. 15) debuted its new global brand campaign “You Wish,” created with agency Whale, according to a press release. The 30-second ad attempts to visualize the Wish experience and highlights Wish Clips, its short-form shoppable video feature that launched in February. The campaign is running across linear and connected TV, radio, social media and influencer marketing channels.

Dive Brief:

• ContextLogic Inc. e-commerce platform Wish launched a brand refresh that includes a new logo and design, updated app experience and faster delivery times, according to a press release. The brand’s new mission is “Bargains Made Fun, Discovery Made Easy.”
• The refresh is supported by a campaign that will run across TV and streaming, digital, social media, influencer marketing and affiliate marketing channels. In later months, consumers can expect additional shifts, like a 15-day delivery window, a new deals hub and a women’s fashion experience, per the release.
• The refresh comes after Wish reported an 80% revenue decrease YoY in Q2 and is an example of how e-commerce platforms are changing the way they do business following a rise in shoppable content by competitors like YouTube, TikTok and Amazon.

Dive Insight:

Wish seems to be taking a page or two from its more video-driven competitors in a move that represents a growing need by shopping platforms to pivot for the sake of relevancy and a sales retreat across the e-commerce space.

Under its new mission statement, “Bargains Made Fun, Discovery Made Easy,” the rebrand flexes new features like faster shipping and lower refund rates and an increased emphasis on user experience and personalization technology. A bolder and brighter logo was also designed to help mark the transformation, which will be joined with a multi-market advertising campaign spanning across multiple channels.

The recent efforts, which also include better seller features and the introduction of short-form shoppable videos, play off the tactics giants like Amazon and TikTok have become known for, and others like YouTube have also embraced. The push has been classified as phase one of its rebranding process, with more features to be announced in later months, per the release.

“Our new brand is fresh and exciting, and better captures where we are today and where we want to be in the future. It signals the start of a new era and continues our dedication to putting our customers and our merchants first,” said Vijay Talwar, CEO at Wish, in a statement.

Founded in 2010 and rebranded as an e-commerce platform in 2013, Wish once rose to be the top shopping app in the world by 2018, per SensorTower findings, and even ranked above Amazon at the time for overall downloads. Its claim to fame was it's surprisingly great deals, though items were often criticized for poor quality with many being skeptical of how the products could ethically cost so little, or if the listings were real to begin with.

The brand has seen a rollercoaster of revenue highs and lows since its founding, but has been on a consistent decline since Q4 2020. For its Q2 earnings this year, Wish reported gloomy results with an 80% YoY revenue decrease to $134 million. Users have also plummeted, dropping from 90 million in 2021 to 27 million this year.

Wish’s rebrand is one of several efforts by the brand to make a comeback. In February it named former Foot Locker exec Talwar its new CEO, replacing founder Piotr Szulczewski, who previously held the role, with the goal of improving the company’s customer and seller experience. Shortly after, it unveiled Wish Clips, its shoppable video tool that allows customers to purchase products via five- to 30-second videos — a clear ploy to follow in the footsteps of TikTok, Facebook and YouTube. Using the tool, sellers on the platform, which total over half a billion, can also monitor their sales performance.

The company also attempted last year to strengthen the trust of skeptical customers by introducing its Wish Standards program, which implements quality assurance standards for all points of the sale process and implements new features to help increase product discovery for its sellers. Around the same time, it expanded its partnership with global retail bank Klarna to add more convenient payment choices for U.S. consumers.