I don’t like Starbucks. Anyone that knows me will tell you. I think it’s a pretentious brand, incredibly unbalanced quality to price ratio and asides from that one chai latte in 2008, any occasion that has forced me to consume a beverage from the Seattle based giant has ended in blood, tears and a lawsuit. Ok, not a lawsuit (or blood) but you get the gist. How do I feel about the new Starbucks logo? I hate it.
Basically, what the coffee house has done is eliminate the white text circling the Starbucks siren, enlarged their very own femme fatale and voila! A cleaner, smoother almost art deco-esque revised image, right?
Wrong.
Chief executive Howard Shultz has put little fits of outraged clients (really, you’re outraged?) to rest, explaining the move as more fitting to the Starbucks long- term vision. Said vision sees the money sucking brewers expand further into the groceries business; hardly going to sell a bar of chocolate with the words ‘Starbucks Coffee’ emblazoned on the wrapper, are they?
Wait… why the hell not? As a consumer, I feel like Starbucks is trying to be something they’re not. It is to my greatest horror that I must now endure business meetings over not only mediocre tasting and incredibly pricey coffees, but will also eventually be faced with an array of what I can only imagine will prove to be a smorgasbord of equally mediocre products, also at stupidly expensive price tags.
I know Starbucks has enjoyed unrivalled success in their industry and I know many of you will disagree with me, but in my humble opinion, why change something that works for your brand and has done for almost a decade now? Some might argue that Starbucks has reached that point of market saturation where it can quite easily rid itself of extra brand luggage. I choose to disagree. Starbucks is not McDonalds, it is not Nike and it most definitely is not the artist formerly known as Prince.
Steady on coffee criminals.
Starbucks brand and product are always going to be intertwined. No matter what they do with the logo. They're hardly Mitsubishi (for example) that are involved in almost everything in the world ever.
ReplyDeleteNo amount of creative logo changes will change Starbucks brand identity as coffee people. If they are looking to diversify, surely it'd make more sense to retain the coffee aspect as the core and then diversify?
Your take is interesting as well. I'm sure if you had come to my Starbucks your experience would have been different. Despite that, I do have to admit that since their coffee has to cater to the masses, it doesn't have the flavor that coffee lovers really love.
ReplyDeleteBesides that, you are spot on. Thanks for sharing this with me.