Why consumers balk at companies’ efforts to rebrand themselves

See article

Readers' comments



What I find so unusual about this situation is that, unlike Tropicana or The Gap, Starbucks is hardly even altering their logo. They took a siren in a circle, and popped out a siren on her own. It has the same colour palette as before, the primary image you see is effectively the same thing, and the overall feel of the logo is similar. Sometimes I almost have to wonder if competitor firms are responsible for online uproars, to keep other firms from improving and modernizing their branding.


The article justifiably makes fun of "marketing drivel" and "guff". Shouldn't it also pillory consumers, who "consider themselves to belong to “communities” defined by what they consume"? To me that seems by far the more pathetic modern phenomenon.


i like coffee and dislike serious speeches, when I want satisfaction from it! :) simplicity is right way to success. and easy


A better strategy for Starbucks would be to expand their choice of coffee. At the moment they have two: Americano and Espresso, which both are as close to coffee as Budweiser is to beer.

WT Economist

What I never understood about Starbucks is why they don't serve Gelato. The coffee places in Italy sell coffee, sandwiches and gelato to generate demand all day. For a while there was a Starbucks line of ice cream in delis, but not in Starbucks.


Won't someone think of the poor shmucks who spent money on the brand's merchandise? Change the logo, and then all the stickers and t-shirts and keychains don't do as good a job at labeling the owner according to their consumption patterns.

Like the Sneetches of Dr. Seuss who separate by who has stars on themselves, the recognition by others and resulting categorization is the whole point. Companies shall not deface The Mark!

aidan clarke

Cognitive dissonance is a b*tch. When you expect to see one thing but actually see another, it is annoying. Different people get annoyed to different degrees.

Rich New Media and Marketing

There comes a point when companies have to realize that THEY are in control of their brand not consumers. Consumers are part of the brand but at the end of the day it is the management who has to be accountable for the brand metrics not consumers. Starbucks has so much brand and product equity that I doubt that the logo change is going to prevent any person from their daily mocha java. If Apple changed their logo tomorrow do you think the lines would be any shorter for new Apple products ? If you execute well on other customer touch points and exceed expectations your logo change is not going to have that big an effect on your business but the brand has to know where they stand with consumers and within competition


I think this is a great move for Starbucks. It shows a lot of ambition. And I think that this is a good time for the change. Starbucks has got it's highest visibility in it's history right now and everyone identifies with the Siren. You don't lose anything, in my opinion, from the original logo. Anyone who sees it, and who is loyal to the brand will automatically associate it with it's product and the shared sense of community that Starbucks perpetuates and is synonymous with. Take your place among the few and the proud: Apple, Nike, McDonalds. It's time Starbucks.

And just as an aside, I detest having to sign up for a site and give out all of my personal information just to leave a small comment. It takes 10 minutes to sign up for the site and two minutes to post a comment. I'll more than likely never visit the site again so it's a little tedious and a-n-n-o-y-i-n-g.


It would be interesting to understand how the cyber-mob is constituted - do what extent do they really represent the opinion of the customers? Despite all the talk of Web 2.0 it is normally compared to the total group a relatively small number of extremely active and aggressive internet users. It reminds me the French Trade Unions, who succeed in blocking the country although they are representing a small minority of all workers. How much should we trust the wisdom of this crowd???



Products and events


Take our weekly news quiz to stay on top of the headlines

