Starbucks: Another logo redesign disaster?

First The Gap, now Starbucks? What is it these days with major iconic brands feeling the urge to redesign their logos? Let's listen to the folks from Starbucks:

"Here we are today. Our new evolution liberates the Siren from the outer ring, making her the true, welcoming face of Starbucks. For people all over the globe, she is a signal of the world’s finest coffee – and much more. She stands unbound, sharing our stories, inviting all of us in to explore, to find something new and to connect with each other. And as always, she is urging all of us forward to the next thing. After all, who can resist her?" (Steve M., Senior Designer at Starbucks)

Wait a second? The Siren? I never knew there even was a siren. For me, there was always 'this woman' in the circle. I have neither heard of a siren, nor have I cared much about it. For me, Starbucks was Starbucks was Starbucks. Coffee, first and foremost.

"She is a storyteller, carrying the lore of Starbucks ahead, and remembering our past. In a lot of ways, she’s a muse –always there, inspiring us and pushing us ahead." (Steve M. again)

Oh my, I find it fascinating when some people get lost in too much poetry to describe a product they are selling. No one's ever told me a story. I've never seen a lore of Starbucks. I never felt inspired. All I wanted was coffee.

So a new logo it is, obviously. The jury is still out on whether this was the right move or not. I am not sure it was. Yes, the new logo looks more contemporary and fresh, but the last one wasn't really bad. Neither was it outdated. Too much prominence now is given to the Siren. And to be honest, now that I know it's a siren, I don't really understand what she has to do with coffee? She lives in the water, no? Has a fishtail, no? Coffee, good coffee that is, grows in the highlands of Colombia, Costa Rica or Brazil, but not by the water. So why a Siren? I don't get it.

While she was in the circle, surrounded by the Starbucks name, it didn't matter. Now it does. But it doesn't make any sense. Furthermore, much more attention now is drawn to her boobs. She looks like one of those cover girls on Elle or Vanity Fair that are being photographed naked, with only the long hair covering the bare chest. Or is that just my male fantasy imagining things that aren't there?

Related links:
Starbucks official preview site

The Good & The Slow: Two Burgers, Customized

BK menu on 39th & 7th Ave in New York.

Advertising can’t solve all of your brand’s problems. Many other factors play an important part as well. Sometimes - as shown in this story - even with all four ‘P’ (price, place, promotion, product) in place, success is not guaranteed.

EXAMPLE 1: THE SLOW
The King has what a fashion brand would call a ‘flagship store’ on 39th Street & 7th Avenue, right in the heart of Manhattan’s fashion district. About a year ago, the old joint got an expensive overhaul, and a quite revolutionary concept (within the BK universe) was launched: the customizable burger. The options are more than enough, Prices are great, the Place is contemporary and fresh, Burger King’s Promotions/ads are fun and cool, and the Product is good, with the caveat that it’s fast food.

Within the fast food industry, that would seem to be enough to leave the competition behind. Yet in Manhattan, where two dozens of lunch options can be found in almost any one block radius, you need to do better. Gladly though, the direct competition (no, not McD) is only a block away, on 40th & Broadway – a brand new burger concept place called ‘The Counter’.

Enter BK. 1pm. Lunchtime peak. The previously 4Ps absorbed, I’m waiting in line – a way too long line for a fast food joint. Only two of the four cash registers open, the order taking progresses in a graceful manner, and watching the service staff cope with the challenge of assembling not a cookie cutter burger order, but individually unique meat towers, one can only admire the peacefulness and calm in their workflow. It’s like watching a cooking show in slow motion.

Summary: a shiny storefront, and flashy LCD displays can’t make up for the lack of excitement and passion in this joint. Somehow you get the impression they are trying to sell you an old product in a new packaging. If you’re product is standard fast food, then you’d better be fast.

Passion in a bun: The Counter on 40th & Broadway.

EXAMPLE 2: THE GOOD
Enter ‘The Counter’. Only one block away, the place is packed beyond capacity (BK was at about 25% capacity). The people waiting in line here don’t seem to bother. A look at the menu: wow! What a difference. Not just the sheer number of options (5 meats, 12 cheeses, 30 toppings, 21 sauces, 6 buns), but also the factor that it’s all fresh, natural, hormone and antibiotics free, tells you that someone here really cares about burgers.

Add another ‘P’ to the marketing mix: Passion. Go see for yourself, take a bite, and you will understand what BK is lacking: the pride and the intrinsic motivation and identification of its staff with its product. Advertising can’t buy that. A nice store can’t buy that. It comes from within. If you care, your customers will notice, and subsequently they will care about you.

Summary: great differentiation from all the fast food chains armed with multi-million dollar budgets, and furthermore from all the delis and bars and grills that throw greasy burgers out there. Betterburger may have had a chance to do the same, but somewhere along the way they lost that special something.

Questionmark: Traveler's insurance dog commercial

"This dog deserves an Oscar!" "How cute..." "Love this commercial." The great thing about YouTube is that you get unfiltered, direct feedback from your audience. Having scanned through the first ten pages of comments, one may assume Traveler's insurance scored a big hit with the audience. After all, 625,000 hits on YouTube cannot be ignored.

I am not a dog lover myself, so the emotional "how-cute-effect" is completely lost on me. I do, however, see the emotional appeal and the brilliant storytelling in Traveler's commercial. Is that enough though? Does an entertaining commercial mean it's a good commercial; in our world: an effective commercial?

Let's take a closer look. What is the marketer's goal? In this case: Create awareness for your brand, and subsequently sell more insurance policies. I am not fully convinced this commercial actually does that. Yes, it is cute. Yes, it has been watched more than half a million times here. Many of those views seem to come from the same dog lovers who watch it over and over again. Non dog-lovers like me don't care very much. Let's check off the 'creating awareness' box however. But will it help sell more insurance policies?

I dare to say that the analogy drawn between a dog and his bone and the implied benefit for us humans seem a bit far fetched and very vague. The message is just a little bit too abstract, and the takeaway not very clear. Granted, the implied meaning is "Traveler's takes care of things. You need not worry." But what insurance does not do that? That's exactly the one thing they all have in common - they insure things. That is the whole premise for their business model. Where is the differentiation from the competition? The dog?

Geico has the Gekko. Aflac has the duck. Highly successful brand mascots. Will Traveler's stick to the dog for years to come? Or is this just one story being told. If so - what's next? Where is the cohesive thread that builds brand equity for the future? Is it perhaps in the way the story is being told? Will we see a similar analogy next, featuring a cat? I am afraid that the follow-up we'll get to see from Traveler's will be a completely different story, only tied to the above by the end credits and the Traveler's name vs. building on a clearly defined brand identity platform.

Furthermore, there is another issue with story-telling approaches like this one. Assume an audience that does not pay full attention to the commercial when it's running on TV, and quite frankly only a few people ever do. They checking their smartphone, have a conversation, do x, y, and z..., which leaves you as a marketer with only the audio part of your commercial that potentially reaches the audience. In this case, 95% of the time the consumer hears nothing but music, and just at the very end the words "Traveler's insurance" spoken only once! That's a lot of visual and audio space you paid for that's wasted.

The challenge with all this is that as a marketer (the ad agency's client) you need to combine your business needs with an artistic approach (which is what you pay the ad people for) by applying knowledge that is built from past experiences (ideally yours) and tons of research results available to everyone these days (Journal of Consumer Research etc.).

Too often though, the ad people don't care about research very much. They want to win a creative award to bolster their portfolio. The marketer however should be interested in winning an Effie, not a golden pencil. After all: do you want to have just a well-known brand (think: Camel) or do you want to have a successful brand?

Flying under the radar: Delta & Coke

Two weeks ago, on a transatlantic flight from New York to Europe: the seat belt had been fastened, the baby three rows up front started its free concert, the guy across the aisle began his cough attack, and the flight attendant made the following announcement: "Welcome aboard flight 1234, .... once we are up in the air, our service staff will come around with the beverage cart and serve you a selection of Coca Cola products for free, alcoholic drinks and beer are seven dollars...".

A similar announcement was made a couple times during the flight, and only the third time around I realized that the beverage cart contained more than just Coca Cola products, and also that in the past the flight attendants announced 'refreshments' or an unspecified 'beverage selection' vs. explicitly calling out Coca Cola. A week later, on the return flight back to New York, the same announcements were made. Obviously, this was neither a one-off, nor the spontaneous inspiration of one flight attendant.

The Coca Cola company must have struck a deal with Delta Airlines to actually write these words into the announcement each Delta flight attendant reads off a sheet during the flight. What a brilliant way of getting your brand name into the consumer's ear!

Why is this so billiant? Well, for a number of reasons:

1) A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE
As a marketer, you are facing every brand's dream scenario: a captive audience. They are not just all huddled up together in a confined space without anywhere else to go, they can't even tune out the message or turn down the volume! If you are using the inflight entertainment system, the inflight announcement system automatically pauses your movie, tunes out your music, and all you can listen to is the words coming out of the flight attendant's or captain's mouth.

2) A QUANTIFIABLE TARGET AUDIENCE
The Coca Cola marketing managers must love it: simply take the daily / weekly / monthly number of delta flights and the passenger volume, and you know exactly how often you have gotten your brand name in front of how many passengers.

3) BROAD REACH FOR A BRAND WITH GLOBAL APPEAL
For brands such as Coca Cola, this is simply a fantastic way to catch every consumer group, from the young kid to the middle aged working professional all the way to the senior citizens, reminding all of them across America of its products. Whereas many brands face the challenge to find and target their consumers in a highly fragmented media landscape, Coca Cola and its various brands target everyone. And that is exactly who they get on an airplane.

In times of advertising and promotional clutter, this way of getting the name out is simple, it is subtle, and I'm certain other airlines will follow shortly.



The minivan dilemma: Honda Odyssey

And a never-ending odyssey it seems to be... trying to sell and/or advertise a minivan in an exciting way. The problem is: a minivan is just not exciting. It's neither nice, nor sporty, nor does it fit any of the emotional categories that get a guy's juices flowing. Just imagine the guys from TOP GEAR, and their blunt, unfiltered comments about any kind of this unfortunate automotive species.

Well, here is another failed attempt. What the hell was Honda thinking? Lighting fire around the car? Showing an image of a panther for a split-second? Filling this vehicle with a Marshall sound system? The only thing that's missing is some B-list celebrity testimonial as to how awesome this car is. Urgh...

Let's be honest for a moment. The target group for a minivan is, and always will be a family with more than one kid. No single guy in their right mind would spend a buck on a minivan. No married man with the kids sent off to college will be willing to continue driving around, and being seen in one. This is a functional car, and while the kids live under the same roof as the parents, this species has a right to exist.

What's wrong with this commercial / car? Multiple things:
a) the fire & lighting - it's just stupid and a desperate attempt to create excitement
b) the panther - Jaguar owns the positioning territory associated with a cat of prey
c) the Marshall sound system - a complete waste of money loading a minivan with that kind of technology

Honda had better put out a special edition of their CR-Z, the Element or the Ridgeline. The kind of guys who drive these cars might appreciate this 'rock' angle and a Marshall sound system. They will however, never ever voluntarily set foot into a minivan.

This is just a totally wrong concept of a car. The advertising only makes it worse.