Last week, Starbucks unveiled a new logo. This move, as readers of BlogLESS are aware, is done at a brand's own peril. (Further case in point, GapGate.)

Nevertheless, as Olivier Blanchard notes, "Seemingly undaunted by the prospect of having its own logo redesign firebombed across the Twitternets by masses of disappointed customers and fans, Starbucks moved ahead to mark its 40th birthday with such an exercise..."

The result?

The reaction, predictably, has been almost uniformly negative (and occasionally funny).

Logos "Starbucksified", courtesy of The Brand Builder Blog

Starbucks had to anticipate a negative reaction. But did they make a mistake?

I myself am not so sure. The logo retains the iconic Starbucks mermaid, and so visual continuity with the previous logo. Starbucks is hardly in a position to lose brand recognition at this point. Certainly, the new logo doesn't "pop" off the cup as much as the old logo does, but logos aren't comic books.

This design seems to me to be more of a political move -- a landgrab -- than a visual one. The point of logos, or at least one of their major functions, is to communicate the idea of a brand to viewers as quickly and simply as possible. If Starbucks can do that with a green circle, that, to my mind, is a huge gain for the coffee giant in the cultural iconographic Zeitgeist.

Of course, we probably ought to mourn the loss of a culture where we didn't associate a green circle with the Starbucks brand, but that's hardly the kind of thing we ought to expect Starbucks to care about. It's worth visualizing the iconographic payoff that Starbucks is playing for with this redesign:

The Starbucks logo, unevolved (contrast: Google's logo)

Meet the new drink, same as the old drink

I'm not a big fan of the redesigned Pepsi logo. Find me someone who is.

It seems like it was changed just for the sake of change and at the wrong time. Is now the right time to reinvent the brand? When people are struggling, is that what we need to see-- a little bit of cosmetic surgery? How does that improve the product or make the customer's life better?

Moreover, the new brand has been completely undermined for me ever since I saw this image:

Drawing by Lawrence Yang

Now, every time I see a new Pepsi, I see a drooling fat guy. It makes me yearn even more for the for the svelte profile of the old logo.

Pepsi's Gravitational Farse

I'm not quite sure what to think of this:

Yes, the Pepsi gravitational field certainly does suck.

Someone seems to have leaked a document that contains the advertiser's pitch for the new Pepsi brand. The New York Post describes its content thusly:

The document, called "Breathtaking Design Strategy," is littered with historical, philosophical, scientific and mathematical ideas dating back to 3000 BC. It references the Golden Ratio, Feng Shui and Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity.

At one point, the presentation compares "Planet Pepsi" to the Earth's magnetic pull, with diagrams showing Pepsi as the gravitational force between the end of the aisle and the checkout stand.

And it doesn't stop there. The beverage goes from being the center of the Earth to the center of the universe.

It's either a brilliant Andy Kaufman-style marketing campaign or shocking evidence that advertising has run off the rails. The description of the project seems too crazy to be real; like it has to be a joke. If it is, then "leaking" the document onto social aggregators to generate buzz is genius. The creators, Arnell Group, haven't demanded the removal of the documents, but then again, the cat's out of the bag. Taking it off the Internet would be impossible at this point.

Many seem to think it is legitimate. If that is true, then it seems to be an embarrassment. Even other advertisers are shaking their heads. Why would an a firm make something like this for a client? If the public would respond negatively to the brief, is it really a good idea?

Throwback a Pepsi

Image via.

Pepsi's plan to release a cane sugar version in the US could be a good product. Many people say cane sugar soda tastes better and is better for you because it doesn't use corn syrup. Doesn't that seem like a quantitatively better product?

But, alas, it has a crappy brand. What kind of name is "throwback"? It makes it sound anachronistic or worse, like something you'd throw away. And that packaging looks awful. It's like they really don't want people to buy non HFCS drinks.