Starbucks’ New Logo – Boredom Strikes

 

What Changes?
As depicted in the pictures, Starbucks has decided to crop-out the green outer ring and the ‘starbucks coffee’ wording. It also loose the black background behind the Siren (the mermaid) and pull her out instead in one clear clean white background while maintaining the circular form. This has been their fourth official new logo in the successful forty years of journey. Now let’s get down to business and answer the fundamental question everyone’s is pondering.

Why?
The official Starbucks statement answers:

“Our new evolution liberates the Siren from the outer ring, making her the true, welcoming face of Starbucks. For people all over the globe, she is a signal of the world’s finest coffee – and much more. She stands unbound, sharing our stories, inviting all of us in to explore, to find something new and to connect with each other. And as always, she is urging all of us forward to the next thing. After all, who can resist her?”

Now, that is the official mumbo-jumbo, here’s the true reason behind, comes forward from the CEO itself, Howard Schultz in a short video, and it comes out at the last second of it:

“What I think we’ve done is we allowed her to come out and gives us the freedom and flexibility to think beyond coffee.”

Boredom Strikes
As with anything new, there’s always pros and cons. Just as Facebook changes its page every once in a while and there’s always people hating it, but give it time to get used to it, they’ll enjoy themselves already. Therefore, this discussion of yes and no is off limit for me. What I see is beyond that.

The new Starbucks logo comes together in part of their 40th anniversary in March. Not a coffee aficionado myself, but I’m kinda have enough of Starbucks and its hype over the years. Face it, they’ve become the largest coffee franchise. At this stage, the only growth they can make is add some more Starbucks shop every couple blocks away in untouched cities all over the world, shut ‘em off if its not profitable and move location until deemed profitable. Or, innovate new drinks every once in a while.

How boring is that?

Therefore the change, it is natural. The curiously similar case proven successful before is Nike. Started out with the NIKE word and the check mark in 1971, they eventually lose the wording out and simply use the swoosh design in 1995. It has made the brand stronger than it ever been.

What Good Is Has Brought (So Far)?
First and foremost, publicity. This is perfect timing. Twenty-eleven with social media users growing rapidly. Facebook and its 600 million user. Twitter with 200 million. Just imagine the amount of buzz it has created over one week and they don’t have to pay any cent for that. Invite a mass of media for a press conference. And there you go free advertising for Starbucks.

Second. Being ahead of the competition. Starbucks claimed that the new expanded version of its business will roll out eventually sometime in spring. While others are still sitting on a quiet afternoon, sipping their cup of tea and coffee, Starbucks has given them a shock-therapy. Yes, the competitors just jumped out of their chairs, spill the coffee on themselves, and caught lazying.

Third. One atomic wipeout of cheap copycats. We’ve seen coffeeshop around the world, tweaking Starbucks previous logo a little bit and made it their own. Change the color, change the word, make the line thinner, the circle bigger, endless line of possible imitation. But now, they all meant nothing, since the leader that they follow has changed it all once and for all. There’s no possible way to re-create the mermaid. Now everybody knows, if its the mermaid, its Starbucks, other than that, its just another bad coffee.

All in All
And so they decided to step into a different world. Beyond their little kitchen. Will it be successful? I don’t know. I personally think any brand should focus on one keyword. For Starbucks it’s ‘coffee experience’. To reach other business, I suggest new brand but I’m just gonna leave it at that. Don’t overthink it, they have another 40 years to proof.

Smile on, Shine on
Fellexandro Ruby
Snack on my tweets @captainruby

Le Whif – Menikmati Coklat Tanpa Takut Gemuk

Bayangkan menikmati kelezatan sebatang cokelat, atau aroma kopi yang membangunkan kepala, dan banyak makanan lainnya tanpa harus takut terhadap kalori yang membuat gemuk. Terdengar seperti mimpi? Mungkin, tapi yang satu ini bukan mimpi lagi, bahkan sudah beredar untuk beberapa waktu. Meet Le Whif, dimulai di tahun 2007 dalam eksperimen kuliner antara seorang profesor Harvard, David Edwards dan seorang koki avant-garde yang revolusioner di Perancis, Thierry Marx. Setelah beberapa tahun memperbaik dan menyempurnakan formulanya, di bulan Mei 2009, Le Whif officially sudah tersedia di 32 negara di dunia.

 

Produk pertama Le Whif datang dalam tiga varian rasa coklat: coklat murni, coklat raspberry, dan coklat mint. Terlihat dari gambar di atas, Le Whif yang berbentuk seperti lipstick ini dinikmati dengan cara dihisap melalui mulut. Seketika partikel kecil akan mengikuti hisapan udara, masuk ke dalam mulut dan dinikmati oleh lidah.

Inovasi Le Whif selanjutnya adalah varian kopi dan vitamin yang juga dihisap (inhaler). Website official Le Whif menyebutnya ‘revolusioner’. Begitu juga dengan beberapa media seperti Oprah, New York Times dan Cosmo yang membantu Le Whif melesat secara komersil. Namun mampukah bertahan atau berlalu seperti sebuah trend / fad? We’ll see about that.

Mungkin buat para wanita, inilah jawaban atas doa mereka. Mungkin quote yang cukup populer di kalangan mereka “a moment on the lip, forever on the hip” bisa jadi sudah tidak berlaku lagi. Mungkin. Kita tidak pernah tahu secara Le Whif belum sampai di tangan consumer Indonesia yang cukup unik perilakunya.

Saya pribadi lebih ingin mencoba satu hisap dua hisap sebelum menyampaikan opini. But oh well, melihat kemungkinan yang cukup kecil untuk sampai di market lokal Indonesia, sekalian saja saya sampaikan sedikit pemikiran saya. =)

Mungkin buat readers yang mempunyai lidah manis seperti saya, Le Whif adalah suatu penemuan yang menarik. Dengan klaimnya yang memberikan full-flavor dari coklat dalam kurang dari satu kalori, tentunya sekarang bisa ngemil tanpa merasa bersalah ketika melihat timbangan di rumah nanti. Hehe. Tapi, melihat harganya yang dipatok di 1.8 Euro alias 22.000 Rupiah per tabung, rasa-rasanya sulit menukarnya dengan coklat. Belum lagi barang import sampai Indonesia bisa hampir dua kali lipat harga aslinya. After all, kalau tidak lebih ekonomis dari coklat / kopi aslinya, buat apa juga toh? Ditambah lagi setiap tabung habis dinikmati dalam 4-5 hisapan saja. Walah! –”

Lagi-lagi menurut saya tidak ada yang bisa mengalahkan nikmatnya potongan coklat asli yang lumer perlahan di dalam mulut, di atas lidah yang berputar menikmati manisnya perlahan. YUM!

Kalau kata penemunya sih, Le Whif tidak diciptakan untuk menyaingi coklat, tapi sebagai alternatif terhadap coklat, seperti layaknya variasi coklat seperti minuman coklat milkshake atau sejenisnya.

All in all, si neophile di dalam saya tetap penasaran pengen cicip. Nah siapa diantara wanderers yang mau berbaik hati membawakan saya kalau sedang berjalan” di Amerika atau Eropa? Ditunggu loh. Upahmu besar di surga. =p

Expectantly waiting,

Fellexandro Ruby

Food Enthusiast & Photographer
Cemal-cemil tweet saya di @captainruby

Would You Like To Have Extra Gold Toppings, Sir?

Hi all. I’m currently reading Extreme Cuisine by Jerry Hopkins. For you the weak-hearted, I suggest to leave this book behind, some of the pictures depicted are foul to the eyes. From monkeys, to bats, or cockroach, you name it, its all true and happening at the other side of the world. For me, I’m one curious neophile and looking forward to try these extreme food. But relax, today we’re not going to touch that. Today, i’m interested in Gold. Yes, turns out that expensive rare metal has been used over centuries as ingredients. Let me take you through some of the interesting ones.

Sometime in late 80′s and early 90′s, during the Japanese economic boom and the riches were discovering ways to leisure in their extra fortune, the fad at the time was food garnished with real gold. Restaurants in major cities like Tokyo began offering menus ranging from curry to ice cream with gold sprinkles on top. The popular one was sushi wrapped in gold leaf served along with the traditional seaweed wrapped sushi. This trend arise at the time as restaurant owners realized this was a considerably simple way to increase the value of their meals. How’s that possible? That’s real 22 carats gold!


Here’s how. These gold flakes appear to have more volume than it actually weight. And here’s the process. One thick bar of gold are mechanically pressed into 1/100.000.000 of an inch thick. They are cut after, and place in an ox-hide pouch covered by bamboo stripes. They will then be continually beaten using hammer sledges. After approximately 6 hours, the leaf size will increase twelve times in size, and it’s so thin that you could easily tear it apart.

At the time, a plate of gold sushi worth about 5000 Yen or $40. This trend grows to the neighboring countries such as South Korea where you can find restaurants and coffee shops serving fish, pork, coffee and liquor sprinkled with gold dust to customer who believed that it helped clear waste in their body.  One serving of ten fish with ‘special seasoning’ could cost as high as $1,500. Of course, despite of the ‘healthy’ claims, Gold in that tiny amount has no direct effect whatsoever to the body.

Me, myself, I happened to try one of these gold flakes. Or should I say, drank one. It was back in December 2009 when me and a group of friends were on a trip to Bromo mountain. We were chillin’ at the villa and found an abandoned bottle of champagne in the shelf with a ‘gold leaf 22 carats’ on the label. The bright shiny tiny yellow flakes was like calling us to have a sip of it. And we did, opened the bottle, drank it. I felt good afterwards. It was most likely the ‘placebo effect’ but oh well. I feel accomplished having scratched off one extreme cuisine from my list. As many fads come and go, I’d like to see if gold makes it comeback anytime soon. Well maybe, if it ever goes cheaper compared to the rising chili price in Indonesia. =P Until then, I’ll see you in my next foodventure.

Oh, and now I finally gets Flight Facilities lyrics in Crave You: “I walked into the room dripping in gold, yeah dripping in gold”.   =P

Smile on, Shine on.
Fellexandro Ruby
Food Enthusiast & Photographer