At a stroke, the new logo for the London 2012 Olympics has divided the nation.

As Chairman of Interbrand Rita Clifton points out in the Times article, the logo has 'the Marmite factor' – you either love it or you hate it. But this is the Olympics: it’s meant to pull people together, not push them apart. It should be the Belgian chocolate of brands.

Justifying the design, Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, praised it as a "truly innovative brand" that would appeal to the young. But what about the old? What about the traditional? Didn't Tessa Jowell say it was meant to be 'inclusive'?

I think these comments show what has gone badly wrong here. There is a fundamental confusion between two very different things: a logo and a brand. This serves as a salutary warning for all charities as they increasingly base their communications on the commercial model.

A logo is a thing: a concrete object. A brand isn't. A brand, as our ex-Director of Planning Bryan Miller was fond of saying, is 'what people say about you when you're not in the room' - it is intangible and difficult to control, because it is not owned by a company but the consumer. It is the sum total of all the thoughts, feelings, impressions and experiences that people have when they come into contact with the organisation and its product, or when they write a cheque to save a life. Jeff Brooks summed it up earlier this year: "Your brand is what you do and who you are. What you look like is the smallest part of that. Most branding guidebooks pay lip-service to this fact, but none of them do anything about it. And that's no surprise, because they can't. A brand is bigger than a set of rules you can put down in a spiral-bound book."

Scissors cut paper and brand always beats logo. If one minute we're told the Olympic logo is meant to celebrate inclusiveness, but the next minute we're told there will no discussion whatsoever about changing it then, believe me, the brand ain't inclusive. In fact you could say it is totally exclusive. Elitist. Top-down. Patronising.

The logo may want to say inspiration, but the brand is disappointment. London pride? More like London laughing stock. Where we wanted idealism, we have cynicism – a feeling of 'here we go again' – and a sense of impending doom. What more can go wrong? The only good thing to come out of this dreary fiasco is the creativity it’s inspired in others.

Charity staff: be aware you don't own your brand - and that includes the Chief Executive. Your brand belongs to the beneficiaries and the donors – and a shift from grey to magenta is not going to make up for an offhand remark, a poorly typed letter or not even being thanked. Intelligent visual design is of course vital, but it cannot stand alone. If you want to be 'inclusive', be inclusive – it's so much more than a colour scheme and a jagged line.

Chris Nield