How much does a logo failure cost? Well according to Gap, over $250 million in one day. 
That’s how well the market reacted to the trauma caused by the logo change. Well... Considering it was crowdsourced that’s pretty expensive... But only a few months later Starbucks goes the same way. Releasing a new logo that doesn’t just have the marketing people talking, its crowding their Facebook page. Inundated by comments like:
Starbucks. Leave the logo alone the new one is pants, why on earth would you want to change this iconic symbol
Starbucks Starsucks.
Keep the original logo. I hate the new design. And as for removing your name--you're insane!!! Starbucks is not Starbucks to me without the name.
That’s how well the market reacted to the trauma caused by the logo change. Well... Considering it was crowdsourced that’s pretty expensive... But only a few months later Starbucks goes the same way. Releasing a new logo that doesn’t just have the marketing people talking, its crowding their Facebook page. Inundated by comments like:Starbucks. Leave the logo alone the new one is pants, why on earth would you want to change this iconic symbol
Starbucks Starsucks.
Keep the original logo. I hate the new design. And as for removing your name--you're insane!!! Starbucks is not Starbucks to me without the name.
I have not found any positive mention... This wave of fury (and a post by @PaulBiedermann- link below) inspired me to ask myself a few questions:
Why change?
Was Starbucks ready?
Does it matter, why the fury?
Question 1: First of all, why change.
I’m not in the marketing shoes of Starbucks, people that I have a lot of respect for. But if I back paddle from the result this is what I could get from the brief:
The desire to go where Nike and Apple have gone. Two great brands which together with McDonalds have managed to get their branding down to a symbol.
Why is that good? Because if you want to make something else than you core it works, because when you go to markets with different alphabets (think China...) it works
Because it makes you instantly recognisable, and when marketing can often be about getting recognition fast (in the street for ex), that helps So wanting to join the brands like Apple, and Nike to be allowed to do something else than coffee, in China potentially, and getting marketing shortcuts. A fine brief until we get to question 2. Question2: Was Starbucks ready?
Well, judging by the results, probably not. Why? Well I’m not a logo expert, but the swoosh like the Apple became the symbols of Nike and Apple before they got there. The ywere not just in the logo, but were built as the brand’s signatures before they became the signature. They were put to the front before becoming the logo.
In fact they worked as ‘headlines’ before becoming the endline.
So when the transition happened, it all seemed so natural. The people was ‘oh yes of course’. In fact one could argue that these brands new logos made people’s lives easier, simpler. ‘you know the swoosh/apple, well that’s us’ Well that’s not exactly the case for Starbucks. ‘you don’t know the mermaid, well that’s us’. This doesn’t exactly work in the same way... In fact searching the web, I found this:
So yes looking back the logo might have been a mermaid, but did poeple remember, did the young crowd even remember it, even live through that change? Because yes, the green thing in the middle of the logo was a mermaid. And we never really looked at it that hard.
It’s always a difficult thing to hear because we marketers spend so much time looking at our brand, but people don’t care as much. The mermaid was here, but change the round, take the black out and the Starbucks name, and we don’t know what we’re looking at... So it seems to me that if the intention was good, the people were not ready, the logo isn’t ready for such a change. They might be eventually, but not quite yet. And in fact contrary to Nike and Apple, the change is not give people a service, making things simpler, it’s doing the reverse (today), it’s making their life more difficult having to work out what this is and taking immediate recognition away.
Does it matter you would say, well for a brand that has made enormous inroads in social media, sadly it is... Question 3? Why it matters.
While some might think that Starbucks owns the name, the logo and the company, you might say it’s their problem, and it’s not anymore. Because a brand doesn’t exist on a balance sheet. It is there because it exists in its customer’s minds. And for a company with 20 million fans on facebook, think of a brand with 20 million shareholders. So while change can ruffle some feathers, it always tends to, it normally also has fans, which I have found no evidence of here. So a brand that does that tends to show its fans that it hasn’t really understood them. And that’s more complicated.
People are saying ‘don’t do this to MY logo’. Starbucks is lucky that people care about them, I hope and trust that they’ll find a smart way around this. Because I’m sure they might be able to get there one day, but not that fast.
post by @PaulBiedermann http://bit.ly/av8AI9
Why change?
Was Starbucks ready?
Does it matter, why the fury?
Question 1: First of all, why change.
I’m not in the marketing shoes of Starbucks, people that I have a lot of respect for. But if I back paddle from the result this is what I could get from the brief:
The desire to go where Nike and Apple have gone. Two great brands which together with McDonalds have managed to get their branding down to a symbol.
Why is that good? Because if you want to make something else than you core it works, because when you go to markets with different alphabets (think China...) it works
Because it makes you instantly recognisable, and when marketing can often be about getting recognition fast (in the street for ex), that helps So wanting to join the brands like Apple, and Nike to be allowed to do something else than coffee, in China potentially, and getting marketing shortcuts. A fine brief until we get to question 2. Question2: Was Starbucks ready?
Well, judging by the results, probably not. Why? Well I’m not a logo expert, but the swoosh like the Apple became the symbols of Nike and Apple before they got there. The ywere not just in the logo, but were built as the brand’s signatures before they became the signature. They were put to the front before becoming the logo.
In fact they worked as ‘headlines’ before becoming the endline.
So when the transition happened, it all seemed so natural. The people was ‘oh yes of course’. In fact one could argue that these brands new logos made people’s lives easier, simpler. ‘you know the swoosh/apple, well that’s us’ Well that’s not exactly the case for Starbucks. ‘you don’t know the mermaid, well that’s us’. This doesn’t exactly work in the same way... In fact searching the web, I found this:
So yes looking back the logo might have been a mermaid, but did poeple remember, did the young crowd even remember it, even live through that change? Because yes, the green thing in the middle of the logo was a mermaid. And we never really looked at it that hard.It’s always a difficult thing to hear because we marketers spend so much time looking at our brand, but people don’t care as much. The mermaid was here, but change the round, take the black out and the Starbucks name, and we don’t know what we’re looking at... So it seems to me that if the intention was good, the people were not ready, the logo isn’t ready for such a change. They might be eventually, but not quite yet. And in fact contrary to Nike and Apple, the change is not give people a service, making things simpler, it’s doing the reverse (today), it’s making their life more difficult having to work out what this is and taking immediate recognition away.
Does it matter you would say, well for a brand that has made enormous inroads in social media, sadly it is... Question 3? Why it matters.
While some might think that Starbucks owns the name, the logo and the company, you might say it’s their problem, and it’s not anymore. Because a brand doesn’t exist on a balance sheet. It is there because it exists in its customer’s minds. And for a company with 20 million fans on facebook, think of a brand with 20 million shareholders. So while change can ruffle some feathers, it always tends to, it normally also has fans, which I have found no evidence of here. So a brand that does that tends to show its fans that it hasn’t really understood them. And that’s more complicated.
People are saying ‘don’t do this to MY logo’. Starbucks is lucky that people care about them, I hope and trust that they’ll find a smart way around this. Because I’m sure they might be able to get there one day, but not that fast.
post by @PaulBiedermann http://bit.ly/av8AI9
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