Logos

Before I move on to the main topic of this column, I want to give regular readers of this column a quick update.

A couple of months ago I wrote a column about my son and how he is sometimes fearful or hesitant to jump into new things. In that column I mentioned that no matter how hard we tried, we could not get him to go into the hotel swimming pool. I’m happy to report that when we attended last week’s Texas Press Association convention in Arlington, my wife was very successful in her efforts, and he did "jump in". Of course, once he was in, he quickly realized how much fun it was and the problem then became figuring out how to get him out!

Now, on with the rest of the story.

While traveling to the Texas Press Association with my wife and our two oldest children, I had some interesting thoughts about logos, and how important they are.

One of the things that drew my attention to this was my daughter’s uncanny ability to spot the McDonald’s "golden arches" logo from very great distances.

My wife and I aren’t really big McDonald’s fans, so we try to find alternatives.

My daughter, however, thinks McDonald’s is the best restaurant on Earth.

It’s more than just McDonald’s, though. Although just barely able to read and write, she quickly and easily is able to identify hundreds of major brand logos and she can immediately associate these with the product or service that they are attached to.

To me, it reinforced how important logos and name-brand recognition is to making efforts to market a product or service.

One "logo related" story that was recently in the media, caught my attention and I am honestly baffled by it.

Starbucks, the worldwide coffee-selling chain, has decided to change what I think is a perfectly good logo.

They have decided to return to the original version of their company’s logo, which I honestly think is absolutely hideous.

The original logo features an ugly siren, or mermaid, that is posed in a weird and unattractive way. It’s obvious why they changed it to the very nice looking mermaid that the company used until just recently. Something was wrong with the terribly awful looking logo and they made a wise corporate decision to change it to something that looked nice.

But now, for reasons only known to them, they have decided to return to the original "ugly" logo.

The only thing I can figure is that this is some kind of misguided effort to return to their "roots."

The only thing I can say about it is that the "new" "old" logo certainly does not make me crave a cup of Starbucks coffee.

We noticed on the drive home that while the "ugly" logo is on the cups, the nice looking one is still on the huge outdoor signs.

Perhaps this is a sign that they aren’t completely "sold" on the decision to return to their "rootier" logo.

I certainly hope they give their second thought a second thought.