Branding

What is with all of the major coffee shops rebranding lately?



Caribou Coffee
March 2010

Dunkin Donuts
April 2010

Seattle's Best
May 2010

Seattle's Best celebrates its 40-year anniversary by completely tossing out its logo and moving to a simplified bold new look. Are they planning on expanding into Target cafes or something?

Haha. I think it would work.



Annnnnnnd now, the one that pushed what could have been a coincidence to a definite trend and all-out branding competition:

Starbucks
January 2011

Starbucks celebrates its 40-year anniversary by re-mastering the siren logo, and... removing its name?

Article about Starbucks' design process




In general, it looks like most of these companies are trying to find a sleeker, more simplified and modern look. (Dunkin' Donuts would be the odd one out here, as they went retro. I think that can be said about Dunkin' as a coffee shop as well though- they are definitely an alternative to the Starbucks atmosphere.) Starbucks made an interesting move in removing the company's name and the word "Coffee". Supposedly, this opens up their options to be a company that does more than just coffee, and maybe even some day, move out of the coffee business. Personally I don't see that happening anytime soon, but I suppose the CEO of Starbucks has a little more information that I, the general consumer, do.

Branding is a really interesting issue in today's business world, and is something that I have been thinking about in my own job lately. Check out this neat site that focuses on that topic:

http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/