Starbucks' New Logo: Buzz or Bust?
Seattle-based Starbucks created some noise in the branding world when it announced it would change its iconic logo in early 2011. Now that the logo is here, how big of an impact will it have on the brand overall? The jury is still out, it seems, but this logo refresh might turn out to be a costly marketing move that doesn’t generate the desired—or any—impact, experts say.
Starbucks’ new logo, which appears on cups and in the company’s advertising but not yet on most store signage, no longer sports the green “Starbucks Coffee” ring and instead shows only the image of the Starbucks mermaid or “siren.” According to research from CoreBrand, a New York-based branding consultancy, Starbucks’ brand favorability is on the decline and therefore the new logo is an unnecessary distraction for the company.Favorability among U.S. business decision-makers grew from 2000 to 2007 but has declined since then. “When your favorability is in decline, dropping the name from the logo is not a good idea. It’s probably not going to make much of a dent in their overall brand, but the trend is saying that they’re not as good as they used to be in terms of their brand building,” says James Gregory, CEO of CoreBrand.
Other experts disagree. When the logo was announced, Andy Payne, global executive creative director at New York-based branding consultancy Interbrand, told Marketing News Exclusives: “Starbucks [knows] where the heart of the brand equity expression lies. It’s not in the word ‘Starbucks’; it’s in the individuality of the siren. The symbol [still] evokes the name in your mind.”
Whether it positively or negatively impacts the Starbucks brand, the logo redesign is a questionable allocation of precious marketing dollars, according to Gregory. Starbucks should focus more on its new product launches, such as its instant Via coffee and new pastry line, rather than on the logo redesign, which he calls “a useless change that’s going to be very expensive.”
For more on the marketing strategy behind packaging changes, check out “Packaging: Thinking Outside of the Box” in the March 30 issue of Marketing News, available at MarketingPower.com/marketingnews.
