Starbucks Logo

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/05/starbucks-unveils-new-logo/

Starbucks is changing their logo. Clearly they don’t learn from other company’s who made the same mistake. These corporations spend years building up their brands then think nothing of destroying them.

The problem is the decision makers at the top are over paid and bored. Plus they are dumb. So you take bored and add dumb and you end up with a mess.

Tropicana changed their logo. Obviously Starbucks wasn’t paying attention. They got rid of the Orange with the straw and the result was customers walked by and left Tropicana on the shelf. The backlash was so pronounced they returned the orange with the straw.

http://www.yumsugar.com/Due-Customer-Backlash-Tropicana-Ditches-New-Logo-2853310

The Gap changed their logo too. Again the backlash was so loud they had no choice but to return the old logo. Starbucks wasn’t paying attention to them either.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/12/gap-gets-rid-of-new-logo_n_759131.html

Sometimes re branding is needed. Usually when there is public embarrassment. For example when Value Jet plunged into the everglades people associated “Value” with “death”. So Value Jet changed their name to AirTran and hoped nobody noticed. http://adage.com/article?article_id=70556

When Anderson Consulting was the audit firm for Enron and oversaw the largest corporate bankrupsy in history (at the time) the embarrassment was so great they changed their name to Accenture.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-0209030210sep03,0,7490166.story

http://www.theengineer.co.uk/news/andersen-consulting-becomes-accenture/274223.article

Starbucks has no such reason to change their branding. It is just a stupid decision.