It’s no secret that even Starbucks, long an economic barometer of the disposable income of the United States and the greater world, has come on tough times of late, shutting 600 stores and slashing new store openings around the globe.

No wonder, then, that one of many proposed changes in store for the company is the possibility that Starbucks will roll out a new design for its 15,000 stores in 2009, creating an even stickier customer experience.

Architect Magazine recently profiles 5 teams of architects who offered up their own unique spin on the “perfect” Starbucks store atmosphere, seen here.

One firm went so far as to suggest a redesign of the iconic Starbucks logo, replacing the well known Starbucks name and mermaid image with a “txt-speak” looking *$.

Fortunately, this writer doesn’t think the world is ready for a Fortune 500 company falling for this kind of silliness.

However, with the recent makeovers of Walmart, Xerox, and AT&T (not to forget Intel, Sprint, and UPS), I predict dozens of more top names ditching their stale logos for a hipper, modern look in the next few years. Taking a glance at the Fortune 100, I present…

CB’s top picks for brand remakes by 2010:

• Hewlett-Packard
• Best Buy
• Kraft (there’s an interesting, if not predictable, modernized conceptual logo here)
• Continental Airlines

(I also think Wells Fargo, with it’s horse drawn stagecoach, is due for a remake sooner than later.)

If anyone out there wants to submit some branding ideas for any of these companies, I’d like to profile it in a future article.

Back to Starbucks…

The logo has seen several incarnations since its creation in 1971, the original brown siren based on a Norse woodcut and conjured up by branding expert Terry Heckler, which is getting another run with the temporary “retro-esque” logo seen on Starbucks cups this year.

(Note: Terry Heckler also came up with the name Cinnabon and guided two other popular restaurants in creating best-selling brands: the former St. Louis Bread Company (known today as Panera Bread) and Z-Teca Mexican Grill (now called Qdoba).

Doug Fast, the designer responsible for the green Starbucks logo, provides a glimpse into the transition and sheds some light on the history of the logo we know today.

I am the guy who designed the green SBUX logo. The original brown SBUX logo was designed in 1971 by my employer before I started working for him in January 1974. ( I still work there as a designer) The design company was then called Heckler/ Bowker, here in Seattle. Bowker (the company copy writer) was one of the three original founders of SBUX and left Heckler/ Bowker in 1984 to take on SBUX full time. (there were 5-6 stores at that time) The other two founders were; Jerry Baldwin and Zev Siegal. Heckler/Bowker came up with the Starbucks name and Heckler came up with the first (brown) logo. The other name strongly suggested was Pequod, but lost out to Starbucks.

I did the green “full siren” logo with a stronger, simpler, read for reproduction. The SBUX type was HAND DRAWN and based on the typeface, Franklin Gothic (this was pre-computer, folks) and had to be drawn so it bent well, around the circle. We submitted the logo to Howard, one with a red color and one in a green color. He picked the green color option.

I still have most of the original concept work for the creation of this logo in one of my big sketchbooks. To me at the time, it was just another logo job to do. Who would have thought I’d be sick of seeing it all over the place. It isn’t one of my best logos.

More Starbucks trivia:

The original Starbucks store was actually not in the Seattle Public Market but at the corner of Western Avenue & Virginia, just north, across the street from the Public Market.

The first retail Starbucks espresso café was originally called Il Giornale and was started by Howard Schultz. Only one existed. When the two remaining original owners of Starbucks decided to get out of the business, Howard stepped up and bought the company. Il Giornale was reverted back to Starbucks as the company went national.

The current logo has been in use since 1992.

The mermaid has resurfaced in other forms in recent years…

On signage:

Plastic stirrers:

Coffee bags:

A fresh identity was unveiled today at the Beijing Olympic Games by Bell Canada, the largest telecommunications company in Canada with a storied history. The company debuted the brand with a TV spot this morning at the Olympics, featuring just music and images, sans voiceover.

Bell goes back to basics with a stripped down, decidedly straightforward logo.

Ditching their familiar identity in use since the ’90s — a blue and yellow logo with a pair of swooping ellipses orbiting a face — the company has opted for a simpler logo with slimmer letters and a lighter hue of blue.

“Canadianites” can expect to see the new logo plastered prominently in print and TV.

The new campaign is a joint effort between four prominent agencies. Most notable is the role of Zulu Alpha Kilo, an agency started by Canada’s respected Zak Moureh, who created classic brand and advertising campaigns for Mini/BMW, Nike, and Pfizer. The remaining trio is comprised of Leo Burnett, LG2, and Cossette Communication Group, the latter having provided the new, simpler logo. 

Combined with the new logo is a new slogan, “Today just got better.” This tagline is moldable to the context of a particular ad — in the case of an ad for HD PVRs, the tag reads, “Recording just got better.”

Not one to succumb to the dullness of corporate typeface, Bell tries to stay edgy by inserting so-called Bell-ements — practically unrecognizable bits and pieces of the Bell logo, often rotated — into the company’s advertising.

The new TV spots feature a backdrop of a huge Bell logo. Zak Mroueh, Zulu Alpha Kilo’s creative director, explains:

Bell has such a rich history, so we decided to make the biggest honking logo there is and tell all these stories on the logo itself.

Francine Jones, a marketing professor at Concordia University, said the debut TV ad, depicting Canadian Olympic athletes performing on a giant Bell logo, relates Bell Canada to the high-caliber performance demanded of Olympic atheletes. The spot, according to Jones, “creates a graphic link between global and diversity though with the Bell name. It’s simple and packs a powerful message.”

Today’s launch coincides with the rollout of a slew of new products and services from Bell, including a range of new smartphones (such as the Samsung Instinct), an unlimited world long distance plan, an HDTV PVR with expandable media storage, and a new wireless home networking special.

The rebranding also means more straightforward names have arrived for Bell’s core product lines:

Bell ExpressVu becomes Bell TV
Bell Sympatico is now Bell Internet
Bell Residential is now Bell Home Phone

Straight out of Pork Magazine comes news that Cargill Meat Solutions has launched an antibiotic-free pork brand, sourced from hogs grown in the Midwest free from antibiotics, growth stimulants, and hormones. The brand, Good Nature, was introduced this month to retail and foodservice operators, along with a snazzy website. The identity itself is a friendly but generic-looking eco-style logo that could just as easily lend itself to any natural or green product.

Good Nature is good news for pig meat lovers looking for a minimally processed, natural choice when it comes to pork. Competitors in the growing natural swine market include Berkshire, Applegate Farms, and other small organic farms.

Food Karma Alert notes that the new line of pork products are better for the pigs, those that raise and eat them, and the environment (less greenhouse gases due to lack of industrial production, distribution, etc of the antibiotics and less antibiotics into the earth). 

The Good Nature website offers recipes, Frequently Asked Questions about pork, and a contact form to find a location near you (we hope a map is on the way). You bet your bacon that they also throw in a healthy dose of piggy puns.

Pig Progress has the following quote by Joe Linot, Cargill’s pork marketing manager:

Consumer demand for quality pork that not only tastes good but also contains only healthy, natural ingredients is a growing trend. We want to collaborate with our customers to help them answer market demand by offering Good Nature pork.

Cargill is wise to jump on the natural food bandwagon. The company notes in their press release (wordsmiths take notice) a prediction by Packaged Facts that the natural and organic food industry is expected to surpass $46 billion by 2010, a 63% increase.

Cargill launched a branding program back in May, labeled “Beef Up Your Menu,” to rename lesser-known cuts of beef (flank steak is now Maranada Steak, and so on) in response to a cutback on beef purchases by as many as 30% of shoppers.

It’s clear Cargill is versed about meat and branding, so we wish them well with this new line.

Professional writer Dave Young, who offers press release writing and professional writing services through his company Young Copy, touches the finer points of developing a great ad slogan on Young Copy Blog.
 
Case in point is SingleHop’s slogan:

We Manage IT Differently.

See Dave’s analysis.

A good slogan can be difficult to conceive but very rewarding for any company. The play on “IT” must be working well as Peer1 uses a similar theme in their tagline, “We get IT.” It definitely sticks in your head.

I look forward to Dave’s other discussions on this topic.

A bonus for CB readers:
 
Slogans don’t always translate well, as evidenced by Jim O’Rourke’s list of favorite culturally-sensitive slogans and mottos. Here’s one example:

An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope’s visit. Instead of “I saw the Pope” (el Papa), the shirts read “I saw the potato” (la papa).

(Note that the above potato boy image is actually the face of Swee Hock Foodstuff. We will touch on effective mascots another day.)