Seattle’s Best Coffee, the Starbucks-owned “underbrand” with perhaps the most unfortunate name in all of coffee, recently unveiled a new corporate logo:
The response has been negative and swift.
Really a lousy logo. Beyond generic. An insult to the brand.
The response has also been deeply disturbing and odd.
The red “smiley-face sticking his/her tongue out” is the lower portion of the Starbucks mermaid that is hidden behind the green circle. In other words, it’s stylized thighs with a vagina. Of course, the genius of subliminal advertising is that the images in question are just abstract enough to allow plausible denial to be in full effect. Therefore, when anyone points out what it really is, all the parties involved – Creature Advertising, Starbucks -can deny such accusations with a straight face. Would you like some vagina…er…coffee with your BK Kids Meal?
Gross! And you thought real coffee geeks took this stuff too seriously…
