BUSINESS: Starbucks' New Logo a Grande Mistake?

The new Starbucks logo is here: Is it a disaster of Gap logo proportions? Not quite, but critics are still a bit baffled:

Why did they remove “those pesky words that say Starbucks Coffee?" wonders Meg Marco on the Consumerist. “Coffee, we assume, was the primary problem. Why? Because Starbucks is a fast food joint.”

Maybe that’s true—but more importantly, Starbucks doesn’t want to be seen as a chain, Alissa Walker reminds us on Good. The company went so far as to open stores with completely different names that masquerade as independent coffee shops, after all. But will consumers really forget the name—“and all the baggage that comes along with it”—even though that green siren is so well-known?
 
This may look like a simple “tweaking” of the original logo, but it actually reveals “Starbucks’ abandonment of its core equity,” writes Jim Edwards on BNET. Forget diversification, this is “brand worsification. It’s what happens when a perfectly good brand with a solid record in selling, say, coffee, suddenly decides it can sell anything ‘with our name on it and no coffee in it.’"

The logo is fine and all, but Sarah Walker just doesn’t see the point, she writes on Best Week Ever. “Were the Starbucks execs sitting around and said, ‘We have too much money. Let’s pay a branding firm an exorbitant amount to slightly tweak our image and maybe try and make us less recognizable. If such a thing is possible!!!’”