Corporate Identity? What Identity?

I'm sure I must be the kind of person that ad agencies just hate. I don't recognize corporate branding when it's staring me in the face. I had to have someone point out to me that the Nike "Swoosh" was particular to Nike products. I just thought it was a cute, stylized check mark. The first time I saw a cute young thang wearing shorts with B.U.M. prominently displayed on the rear, I thought, "Well, duh!"

So it was with some headshaking that I read the article in today's Sacramento Bee describing the tiff between In-and-Out Burger and the city of Placerville (formerly known as Hangtown). I&O planted a pair of palm trees so that they crossed, this configuration supposedly being important to their corporate identity. Placerville objected because (1) In & Out hadn't asked "Mother, may I"; and (2) palm trees are not part of Placerville's "corporate identity.

I thought long and hard to see if I could remember seeing the crossed palms at other In & Outs I've visited. I could remember palm trees ringing their drink cups but I couldn't remember if they were crossed or not. But actual trees didn't stick in my mind. A visit to their web site didn't help. No crossed trees show up except on a map link icon that looked like an Interstate sign with the crossed palms on it. I clicked on several store sites and saw some palms but nothing I could identify as crossed palms. If it's part of their identity, they're due for an identity crisis.