Amazon Quietly Tweaks Mobile App Icon After Comparisons To Adolf Hitler’s Mustache

Online retail giant Amazon has changed its mobile app icon featuring ridged blue tape over the smile logo after observers drew attention to similarities between the image and the toothbrush mustache worn by Adolf Hitler. The icon appeared to be first spotted Monday by The Verge.

Public comments on social media seemed to prompt Amazon to change the icon, which appears on tablets and smartphones, to folded smooth blue tape over the smile logo.

Amazon’s new icon appears to be inspired by the company’s signature brown box sealed by blue tape, which customers receive when items are delivered.

“We designed the new icon to spark anticipation, excitement, and joy when customers start their shopping journey on their phone, just as they do when they see our boxes on their doorstep,” Amazon spokesperson Craig Andrews said in a statement.

Amazon first updated the app in January. The mobile icon previously featured a shopping cart with the smiling face arrow logo.

Such problematic visuals often garner commentary from marketing experts. Vicky Bullen, chief executive at the Coley Porter Bell branding agency, touched on the outcry this week.

“Unfortunately for Amazon, the visualization of their parcel tape on the original logo will immediately be associated as a Hitleresque mustache, as that shape is forever embedded in our [subconscious] brains as such - not the best association for a brand that wants to create delight on the doorstep,” she said, according to BBC News.

Corey Quinn, an economist at The Duckbill Group, seemed to echo Bullen's comments.

“Amazon’s new iOS app logo attempt 2: now with 15% less Hitler,” Quinn tweeted following the icon makeover.

The new mobile app icon marks its first update in more than five years. Amazon initially tested the new icon image in a few countries before it was revamped.