Yes. The new Starbucks logo, which drops the company name is a bad idea.
Dropping the "Starbucks" and the "Coffee" from their logo, and turning their symbolic mermaid into their well-known green coloring is not a strong enough change to create a usable "symbol only" corporate identity.
Chief executive Howard Schultz has the right idea about evolving the logo. His solution however shows some of the hubris that got the company into trouble a few years ago. If they want to evolve the name so the company can broaden its product line, they could have done so by dropping the word "coffee" from the Starbucks name.
Dropping the Starbucks name from their logo will only serve to confuse consumers who are not as familiar with the company and thus the target of a company trying to broaden its product line.
A corporate identity should follow a brand strategy, which should follow a business strategy. In this regard, Starbucks approached the identity change appropriately. Unfortunately, as many generals learn, the best strategy can go to hell quickly in battle. I think that is what happened here. Those who created the new corporate identity internally live and breathe the female siren symbol on a daily basis. So, in my opinion, there was no objectivity, no outside perspective on the decision to drop the name.
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