Starbucks Pike Place Roast and the “new” brown siren logo

Photo: Peaberry Picker via onion-bean.

Here is the temporary “new” logo that is being used by Starbucks to promote their Pike Place Roast. It features a naked siren holding…I dunno…her TWO mermaid tails/fins? I don’t know what’s going on really.

The Wall Street Journal has a bit on the new cup:

In case you haven’t seen it, today Starbucks rolled out a cup design that omits the company’s familiar, predominantly green logo of a mermaid encircled by the words “Starbucks Coffee.” In its place: a retro, all-brown version framed by “Starbucks Fresh Roasted Coffee.”

Because the green Starbucks logo is so pervasive, the switch to the retro version is an immediate attention-grabber. It’s just one part of a much broader effort underway at Starbucks, in which the company is stressing a return to its roots and working to reemphasize its brewed-coffee chops.

Seeing the retro Starbucks logo seems so jarring because the company’s familiar logo is so incredibly good. Distinctive and iconic, it is ultra-recognizable. See a flash of green on a white cup from down the street and you know it’s a Starbucks. Most companies can only dream about that kind of brand visibility.

Which raises a question: Why tinker? Our colleague Janet Adamy, who covers Starbucks and has chronicled the company’s repositioning efforts in great detail, tells us CEO Howard Schultz expects the retro cup to draw attention. “I think the logo’s going to be somewhat disruptive,” Mr. Schultz told her in New York today, where the company hosted a giant promotional event. “We want people to talk about it.”

And the new temporary logo has done it’s job.