Starbucks Rebranding: Calculated move or a curious case of Brand Narcissism?

Turn of the new decade (year 2010) has witnessed a lot of logo changes and rebranding initiatives from companies around the world. Gap did it (however, their new logo lasted only a week, they quickly reversed back to the old one following a chorus of caustic criticism), PWC did it, Starbucks did it and even our very own Airtel had a new makeover.

The thing about rebranding, consumers are notoriously unreceptive to logo changes, that is something that marketers need to ignore to some extent and move forward with their strategic plans. If Starbucks’ plans are for global expansion to non-English speaking nations then their move makes sense but if they think that their logo is an ideogramic expression for coffee then its brand narcissism. PricewaterHouseCoopers are better known as PWC all over the world so, it makes sense for them to abbreviate the logo to just ‘pwc’ with a warm color panels, which can shrink and grow according to the medium and usage. In 2007, Apple dropped the word “computers” from company’s title, rightly so, take a look at their top four products Mac, iPods, iPhones and iPads, only one of them is a computer. More over, the monochromatic apple logo itself is instantly recognizable with or without the name ‘apple computers’.

In Starbucks case, dropping all text and playing up the ‘mermaid’ (or siren) suggests venturing into new territories where language is not a barrier. It also suggests the freedom and flexibility Starbucks will have in introducing new products and explore innovations. But, the question is: Is Starbucks’ new ‘mermaid’ logo clearly identifiable, without the name Starbucks in it? Especially in new territories? Or is it a case of brand narcissism?

The first level of brand narcissism is when a brand desperately wants their target audience to recognize the brand, love it and be loyal to it. There is nothing wrong with this dream, it’s natural. What is wrong is when we morph this wish into ‘strategy’ – where we force target audience to recognize the brand, expect them to love it and be loyal to it. The second level is even more dangerous, this is when a brand forgets its underlying purpose. The core attributes of Starbucks is customer service and customer engagement as long as they stay strong and resolute on these attributes brand “Starbucks” will always remain one of the world’s most powerful  consumer brands.

What’s your story?

Last couple of months have been very busy for me. Busy from setting up my busi-ness. Business of building brands (www.brandkatalyst.com). One of the things I always wanted to do, professionally. I’ve walked, what is termed as the first hard step in entrepreneurship, getting started. However, somepart of me feels that I’ve walked the easy part so far. Someone very rightly defined a start-up as a human institution designed to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty. Now, I truly understand the last part of that definition.

I’ve met different people in the past couple of months, people who run their own businesses. People who have new products, services and dreams to launch. I spend my time in understanding their products and their dreams. I realized, there is one thing which can build a connection between reality and dreams. Story telling!

People love stories. And sometimes people tend to think of themselves as stories or imagine themselves in stories. When we interact with someone, unknowingly we play a role in their story. And whatever you do, whatever they do, or whatever they want us to do, needs to fit into that story in some satisfying way. The more you satisfy that story the more you can influence the person.

When I meet a client, I ask myself what story is that person is trying to tell me about himself or his product, and then I make sure that my role and actions are enhancing that story in the right direction. I believe every great brand tells a great story and some great stories go on to become great brands, take Harry Potter for example. To build a good brand its important to first build a good story. So, what’s your story?

Outsourcing was for the last decade, Crowdsourcing is for the next.

Let me put it this way, if Outsourcing was like inventing a computer, Crowdsourcing is like inventing internet. Outsourcing saved costs for companies, improved quality sometimes, finished projects in shorter time lines, created opportunity for innovation and it even got tax benefits. Outsourcing forced companies to re-think and sometimes re-structure their revenue models. Crowdsourcing will not only change revenue models, it is most certainly going to change business models, radically. Here is Jeff Howe’s definition: “Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job/task traditionally performed by a designated agent/employee and outsourcing it to an undefined, large group of people in the form of an open call”.

A crowd is diversified, no hierarchy, no notion of team, a crowd has everyone from an amateur to a specialist, a crowd can produce the best. However, a crowd has shorter attention span and can produce more junk than good work, so you need filters to separate wheat from chaff.

Crowdsourcing is not a new concept. Jeff gave the concept  a new name in 2006. The Oxford English Dictionary used to run few open contests for readers and contributors to send in new words and definitions. Innocentive.com is another great example of a global crowd of engineers, scientists and innovators to join a community to solve some of the world’s toughest challeneges. Coca-cola’s facebook page (over 3.7 million fans) is another example of how they created fans from cutomers and utilize them to develop/test a new product or a commercial or a viral video. If this can be achieved with web 2.0 then wait for 3.0 and if the metaverse (second life) is web 3.0, then it seems to show that it is already Crowdsourcing (all users/avatars collaborate to develop a product).

Born in the Summer of ’69 : Internet turns 40

Internet, what began as a funded military project in the late Summer of ‘69 to build a robust distributed computer network has become the backbone of today’s global communications. What was a small life form, a small organism once, changed every moment, evolved continuously, mutating into something else, something big each day, each hour and each minute. Thousands of websites, videos, pod casts and gigaloads of other information is posted/uploaded onto various platforms, each minute. With this rapid, multifaceted evolution reaching out to more and more people every day, makes it a perfect platform and an ideal medium for advertising.

It was in the early 90s, when two immigration lawyers from the Silicon Valley first used internet to advertise their green card lottery services. Since then, we all know how online advertising has evolved through years and today it became a powerful tool which can influence a person, a group or an entire nation. It helped a relatively unknown Senator Obama become the President of the United States in less than two years. Although, the real hero here is the strategy adopted, Hillary treated her supporters as “customers” while Obama treated them as “members”.

Online advertising is considered to be the most measurable of all advertising media. One can get really creative in the most cost effective way and understandably more and more people/businesses are gravitating towards it, especially in these never ending, ever challenging recession times. However, what’s not clear to me yet is how people can meaningfully embrace the frequent advancement of technology, and how much more it can alter and augment our daily lifes/businesses?

Last decade, it was Google. This decade, its YouTube, Twitter and the Facebooks. And most certainly, in the days to come, Internet is going to change the world as we know it. It is going to revolutionize the way we think about ourselves and about the world we live in.

“If an axe had a soul, its soul would be cutting”

In the words of Harvard Prof. Rosabeth Moss Kanter “Brands are wonderful assets when they capture the essence of a product, service, or event succinctly, meaningfully, and with endurance over time.”

What are brands really? Brands are mostly extension of companies? What are companies? What do they do? Most of them make and sell products. Again, what are products? Most products are essentially an extension to us, human beings. For instance, chop sticks, an extension to our fingers. A shovel is an extension of our hand. Our hands can probably dig a clever hole; however use of a shovel saves us a lot of time and energy. A mechanical crane is again an extension to shovel and to our hand, used for much larger task. Each product extends the hand to do a different, difficult or a complex task. Similarly a bicycle, a car and a train extend our foot. A computer extends our brain and so on. Some products are personal, like cloths which extend our skin. Some are intensely personal like soaps, body lotions, razors which protect or beautify our skin. Some products can be public, like a mall, an office building. Most products extend human potential and amplify our natural capabilities. And this is exactly where one should start defining their brand. Identify the soul of your brand and you’ll see a clear picture of your brand identity. Plato believed what we really are, is our soul, and that this soul will survive after death. A clear understanding of the brand and its soul will ensure its consistency and longevity.