Why has Moji Weather "turned dark"?

In the midsummer of 2025, it seemed to be even more "ardent" than usual.

The heatwave in July swept across the country. When people habitually opened Moji Weather in the mood of being "melting from the heat" to see when this "sauna weather" would end, they suddenly found that the familiar blue icon with a cloud was gone.

In its place was a brand - new logo so simple that it was unfamiliar, accompanied by an English wordmark in contrasting orange and white colors and the four Chinese characters "Moji Weather" in white. Among them, the letter "O" was like a golden sun.

"Goodness, has Moji also been tanned by the sun?" "This is Moji Weather without sunscreen!" A nationwide rant about the high - temperature unexpectedly made the logo update of Moji Weather a hot topic on social networks.

Moji Weather announced its new look in an unexpected way - being "tanned". When high temperature became a natural catalyst for communication, the "tanning meme" became the best ticket for the brand to enter the market.

This seemingly accidental "collision" with high temperature was actually a long - prepared strategic layout by Moji Weather: from launching the brand upgrade plan a few years ago, to collaborating with Interbrand to sort out the brand system, and then to the official debut in the midsummer of 2025, every step concealed the self - breakthrough of a meteorological service brand. It was no longer satisfied with just "reporting the weather" but aimed to become a "partner that can help people make decisions".

Behind the "tanning", it presented the evolution story of a 16 - year - old meteorological enterprise, showing how it announced its evolution from an "information provider" to a "decision - enabler" through a brand renewal.

The seeds of brand upgrade sown a few years ago

On July 16th, Moji Weather held a brand renewal press conference with the theme of "Meteorology is Different Because of 'Foreseeing'" in Beijing, announcing a comprehensive upgrade of its brand strategy.

The seeds for this had been sown a few years ago.

The in - depth thinking driving all these changes came from Jin Li, the CEO of Moji Weather, who had a new understanding of the industry value: "The impact brought by climate change is becoming more and more obvious, which makes us more clearly realize that the real value of meteorological data is to contribute to people's lives and the development of all walks of life in a practical way."

Based on such insights, a few years ago, Moji Weather redefined the company's mission and vision: The mission is to "initiate a new meteorological era in the world", hoping to foresee changes in advance, help people make decisions, and let meteorological technology change the way the world operates; The vision is to become a "globally leading meteorological service enterprise", providing more valuable solutions for global users and customers.

When this mission and vision were established, the development direction of the brand also became clear - continuously invest in technology R & D and continuously deepen the implementation in scenarios, enabling meteorological services to leap from "information notification" to "decision - enabling".

Going back to 2009, only two years after the release of the first - generation iPhone, Moji Weather was born, becoming one of the first enterprises in the early days of the mobile Internet to enter the weather service field.

After 16 years of development, the role of Moji Weather has quietly expanded: from "reporting the weather to individual users" to "providing solutions to industry customers"; from "providing data" to "outputting decisions"; from a "Chinese weather APP" to a "meteorological service provider serving the world".

These changes needed to be conveyed to users through brand upgrade. So, Moji Weather collaborated with Interbrand, a consulting company that had served numerous global top - tier brands, to promote the brand upgrade and convey these changes to users.

When Gu Bo, the Chairman of Interbrand in China, and his team planned the brand reshaping of Moji Weather, they started from the stages and trends of brand development.

According to the introduction, since the concept of brand was born in the 1960s, its evolutionary development path has already outlined a clear context: from being initially regarded as an "identification symbol" (a logo or specific association), to becoming an "enterprise asset", then upgrading to a "user experience", and then evolving into an "ecosystem". Until now, the brand has become the "leadership" driving business growth.

During this period, the perspective of the brand has also changed: from the business perspective of "emphasizing what the enterprise itself does" to the user perspective of "what it can do for users" to continuously expand the relationship with users.

The "brand arena" thinking played a key role here. This concept breaks the traditional category boundaries and advocates that brands should expand the service scope based on the core consumer needs. Just as Apple is not only a smart device manufacturer but also meets users' diverse needs through financial services, entertainment, health management, etc.

Gu Bo called the arena a landmark move in creating a brand. In his opinion, the "arena" of Moji Weather should not be limited to "meteorological services" but should extend to the intersection area of "mobile life, exploration and discovery, and social connection" to enhance user connection and scenario experience.

But this is not achieved overnight. He believes that the first step in creating a landmark move is to promote internal change - the brand is essentially a process of internal - to - external circulation. The internal consensus on the development direction largely determines the external perception of the brand.

So Moji Weather needs to define the value of its existence with a clear, simple, and focused concept and tell a good brand story to the target audience.

"Diagnosing the current situation of the brand is the starting point, and the ultimate goal is to achieve the brand vision - to clarify what role we want to play in the world, which can both inspire employees and attract potential customers." Gu Bo emphasized.

Based on this idea, Interbrand carried out in - depth analysis from three dimensions:

Firstly, from the dimension of the competitive environment, sort out the trends of brand positioning and expression in the industry;

Secondly, from the dimension of the enterprise itself, look at the core capabilities of Moji Weather. Its outstanding advantage lies in the in - depth integration of the hard power of AI meteorology and the soft power of Internet services, which supports it to provide precise meteorological insights and decision - making guidance, achieve efficient innovation implementation and service response, and convey unique brand value through technological and humanized experiences;

Finally, from the dimension of the target audience. Currently, users' expectations for professional meteorological services have far exceeded a "forecast tool for immediate viewing and leaving". They hope it can assist in work and life decisions, improve the quality of life, reduce weather risks, efficiently arrange daily life, and at the same time have social attributes to share life and connect with like - minded people.

Finally, Interbrand focused the brand positioning of Moji Weather on the two quadrants of "how to do" and "what has been created" and determined the brand's core concept for Moji Weather - "Anticipate meteorological conditions one step ahead, and have intelligent decisions firmly in control". This concept emphasizes that Moji Weather will assist users and customers in making intelligent decisions and easily controlling life, work, and business through professional and agile meteorological services and the ultimate experience of technology and humanity.

The matched new brand slogan "Make the unknown predictable" further conveys Moji Weather's core proposition of continuous iteration and innovation, providing accurate meteorological insights and decision - making suggestions ahead of others to help people better control work and business.

The concept and clear positioning support and echo each other, outlining the future business development direction of Moji Weather from different aspects, and precisely meeting the core needs of the target audience. Together, they form the basis for the brand to communicate with users and the industry, and anchor Moji Weather's breakthrough from "forecast" to "foresight", giving a clear foothold to the brand value.

The design philosophy behind the "tanning"

At the press conference, when the new logo appeared on the big screen, it was like a spark thrown into boiling oil, triggering many netizens to join the meme - making ranks. Some people P - edited the "O" in the new logo into a melting sun, some made "before - and - after tanning comparison pictures", and some played with the meme pictures of "Moji without sunscreen". Even those who usually don't pay attention to brand renewal couldn't help but open the APP to see this "tanned icon".

At the same time, people were also curious about why the new logo of Moji Weather had "turned black". In most people's perception, meteorological service brands should have a fresh look of blue sky and white clouds, which seems to be an established rule.

Moreover, in the current era of "minor adjustments", many brand renewals only make some minor changes to the logo, but Moji Weather made a complete transformation.

This has to start with the two core tasks locked by Interbrand for the brand upgrade of Moji Weather. The first one is to define the value with a clear concept as mentioned before. The second one is to turn the brand story into reality.

More than 70% of human memories come from visual input. After the brand establishes its core concept, it needs to use a more emotionally resonant and intuitive visual expression to let the audience truly feel the core essence conveyed by the brand concept at every touchpoint (including the brand logo, website interface, APP usage experience, etc.).

This means that the visual design must be deeply bound to the core concept. Interbrand analyzed the current visual situation of the meteorological industry: most use common elements such as sunshine, water, and clouds, and Moji Weather was no exception.

In the past, the channels for people to obtain accurate weather information were extremely scarce. Weather apps first needed to clearly convey their core functions to users - and the fresh visual symbols of blue sky and white clouds were undoubtedly the most intuitive way.

But today, people no longer need to recognize Moji Weather through such visual symbols. Simply emphasizing the industry attributes can no longer make Moji Weather stand out in the market, because the common characteristics of the industry are difficult to become the exclusive label of a certain brand. Therefore, the core of brand renewal and upgrade lies in accurately conveying the unique brand positioning through the reshaping of the visual image, and at the same time making the overall visual symbol have exclusive recognition.

Therefore, when exploring the visual image of Moji Weather, Interbrand combined the strategic goals of Moji Weather and established three standards: more professional, more intelligent, and more globally - oriented.

According to Gu Bo, when designing the brand visual for Moji Weather, the team explored many possibilities based on creativity and logic. They not only paid attention to the reasonable inheritance of the brand's existing assets but also strived to achieve a new expression in line with the new positioning. Through a wide - range of attempts, the visual image was deeply bound to the brand concept of "Anticipate meteorological conditions one step ahead, and have intelligent decisions firmly in control".

The final visual system is centered around a simple font logo, using the English name "MOJI" of Moji Weather as the design carrier and ingeniously integrating the connection between the brand concept and meteorological nature.

Among them, the design of the letter "O" is the finishing touch, which is given the metaphor of "anticipating meteorological conditions one step ahead", symbolizing the accurate capture of meteorological data and transforming the abstract concept into a perceptible visual symbol.

In terms of color selection, the combination of black and orange comes from the natural image of the alternation of the sun and the moon: black conveys a sense of professional and rigorous technology, while orange symbolizes warmth and vitality, showing the good life brought by intelligent decisions.

When seeing black, people think of the "hard power" of Moji Weather. It symbolizes the "data moat" constructed by global meteorological stations, radar satellites, and historical data, represents the accurate capture of meteorological changes by AI algorithms, and echoes the professional confidence of "anticipating one step ahead". In the current situation of frequent extreme weather, users need the certainty based on hardcore technology - what black conveys is this "trustworthy sense of professionalism".

When seeing orange, people will think of the "soft power" of the brand. The ultimate goal of meteorological services is to help users "avoid the rain" and "make good use of the rain". The addition of orange gives temperature to the hardcore technology and emotion to the cold data, just like an umbrella on a rainy day and a glass of iced drink on a hot day, conveying the empathy of "I understand your needs".

The collision of black and orange not only fits the technological attributes of the brand but also does not lose the humanistic temperature. At the same time, this new, unconventional, and different brand graphic itself further strengthens the "one - step - ahead" in the brand concept of Moji Weather.

As we all know, a good brand is one that allows users to associate what the brand can do for them when they see the visual symbol.

The new logo of Moji Weather is establishing brand recognition through a perceptible image and gradually linking up the public's associations: when you open it on a rainy day, you will receive the suggestion of "avoiding flooded roads"; when you open it on a hot day, you will get the reminder of the "best travel time"; when you plan to go fishing on the weekend, it can tell you "when the fish are the most active".

"This brand visual system is full of vitality: it constructs a high degree of recognition with a simple and unified design language and can always convey the unique brand temperament of Moji at every brand touchpoint." Gu Bo said.

The value implementation from a "forecast tool" to a "life decision - making platform"

When the brand concept and visual system of Moji Weather were upgraded, the real transformation had already quietly taken place in the business texture.

When Jin Li reviewed the development path of Moji Weather, he mentioned that from initially doing a good job in "minute - level and kilometer - level" accurate forecasts, to connecting weather with scenarios, and then to now using AI to output customized decisions, Moji Weather wants to redefine the value of meteorological services - from "providing information" to "outputting decision - making value", achieving a breakthrough from "forecast" to "foresight".

The confidence for this upgrade comes from three core breakthroughs: a more comprehensive data dimension, integrating diverse information, and making a fine meteorological map of "heaven, earth, and people" through AI algorithms to provide more comprehensive solutions; a breakthrough in decision - making depth, for example, the industry's large - language model can generate specific suggestions such as subway speed limits within 10 seconds; innovation in the service model, providing exclusive solutions for the "weather - sensitive points" in different fields.

This enables the ultimate implementation of the brand value concept and truly allows Moji Weather to break out of the shackles of a "forecast tool".

In the past, the core of weather apps was to "report accurately", but now, AI gives data the ability to "think": by integrating satellite remote sensing, ground sensors, and user behavior data, the AI model can accurately capture meteorological changes at the "minute - level and kilometer - level"; by learning the decision - making logic in different scenarios, it can transform raw data into "executable suggestions".

For office workers, it is a commuting plan of "leaving home at 7 o'clock to avoid the heavy rain + subway delay warning"; for fishing enthusiasts, it is an interest guide of "the best fishing time combined with water temperature and air pressure + nearby fishing enthusiast communities". This closed - loop of "data - insight - decision" turns Moji Weather from a "weather - checking tool" into a "partner who understands scenarios".

The iteration of the service model allows Moji Weather to leap from a "standardized product provider" to an "industry - customized service expert". In the early days, like most meteorological apps, Moji Weather provided unified forecast information. But now, it can prescribe specific solutions for different industries, such as optimizing delivery routes