Do you know the true story behind the Starbucks logo?
Starbucks is a U.S. multinational company founded in Seattle (Washington). In 1971, the three partners, Jerry Baldwin, Ziev Siegel and Gordon Browker, opened the first coffee bean, spice and coffee-making equipment store in Seattle. Starbucks would be the name chosen for that small shop that sold better quality coffee than the local markets, and with that they would be able to create recognition in the local population.
At first the store would be called “Starbucks Coffee Tea and Spices”, and later, in the 80s, the concept of Starbucks Coffee would change, to become what it is today. Howard Shultz, will be a great visionary and important peace of the corporation, who joined the company in 1982.
Howard Shultz, a successful and talented salesman, joined the company in 1982, with the idea of transforming this small shop into an establishment where people could have a good cup of coffee, being an innovative concept and totally different from what the creators of the brand had thought.
Shultz, influenced by his travels to Milan, was surprised by the popularity of “Expresso Bars”, establishments where he could enjoy a good espresso. Realizing the initial potential, he wanted to take the idea to Seattle, and change the way of drinking coffee forever. However this was refused by the 3 partners who thought that the business model would change completely. Schultz left the store and founded the company “Il Giornale” in 1985.
After the success of Il Giornale, for Schultz it was time to expand and in 1987 he bought the Starbucks chain and later joined the names to become just Starbucks. During the 1990s, Starbucks began their growth, expanding throughout the United States and then worldwide.
Starbucks today is a leading coffee-selling company worldwide. It has more than 30,000 locations in more than 70 countries, making the company the largest coffee chain in the world. It produces and purchases the best quality coffee beans in different parts of the world, with the goal of providing not only flavor but texture.
Advertising associated with the brand
Starbucks is a good example of design and sustainability, which makes the product, besides having an incredible personalized service, can be maintained over time. It is a concept that the company has maintained since the beginning, that is, a product and a formidable service, so that consumers, when entering a store, can feel a sense of comfort and tradition that is part of an unforgettable experience. That is why Starbucks does not invest money in advertising, but in their stores, products and its highly qualified staff, who quickly identify with the mission and vision of their founder.
However, the products offered by Starbucks are not limited to coffee, but are always renewing flavors and combinations to offer clients the best possible experience.This makes the consumer repeat this incredible experience of what the brand has to offer, because not only the quality of the product and the taste are guaranteed, but also the quality of the product itself.
The establishments are an essential part of the framework that creates the consumer’s experience, in other words, the relaxing music, the smell of the coffee, the sound of the machines and the installations, where everything fits perfectly to create that harmonious atmosphere, which allows people to enjoy a calm and peaceful moment.
Starbucks is associated with the idea that it is our third home, after home and work, and that there is no other place to have a conversation with friends or simply read a book in peace like Starbucks.
Finally, the third factor that completes that formidable experience is the personalized attention of the company’s workers, who are carefully trained to serve the public in an extraordinary way.The simple fact of delivering a cup of coffee with the customer’s name and calling him by his name makes the consumer feel important, and that is a fundamental part of how the customer can feel in a place where service is a priority.
So Starbucks does not invest in advertising, but in their products and service, because the company has many agreements with coffee producers and is very concerned about the environment and their farmers, so they have programs with many benefits for them.
Another of the company’s most important focuses, where invests most money, is in their workers, whom it calls Partners, who represent the essence of the brand. For Starbucks, being a “Partner” means being considerate, supportive, kind, passionate, and showing a genuine human connection.
After all, a Partner is one who can live and transmit the mission of “Inspire and nurture the human spirit — one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time”
Development, motivation and inspiration are key elements to provide all partners with the best working environment, so the company has many programs to reward their loyalty, such as the Starbucks University program, which offers scholarships of up to 60% for its employees, with this, the company, through social responsibility, is able to return with gratitude the enormous effort of the most important part of the brand.
Focusing on the company’s success
Starbucks Corporation is the world’s largest international coffee chain. Part of the meaning of their name embraces the combination of seafaring tradition and the abstract romantic look that is given to the sea. The Starbucks name represents a unique type of establishment in the world, where the brand has tried from the beginning to stand out in the service offered.
It is important to know that everything the brand stands for today was only possible thanks to Schultz’s vision and commitment. Without his conviction to offer a high quality product and service, focused on improving people’s lives, it would never have been possible to create such a successful brand.
Birth of the brand name
Once the idea of forming a society to sell high quality coffee beans and spices was created, it was necessary to find a representative name and image that could seduce and impress people.
The three founders of Starbucks enjoyed drinking coffee and used to get together to comment on books they read. One that caught their attention was the fascinating story of Moby Dick, which tells the story of Captain Ahab, a sailor who has a strange obsession with chasing a white whale through the seas aboard his ship “Pequod”.
One afternoon, while the young and future partners were talking about the coffee shop they wanted to create, the idea of the fantastic novel arises, which they would like to include as a representative figure of their business. This is how they decided to name their coffee shop “Starbucks” in honor of Starbuck, the captain of the ship Pequod, in which the story of Moby Dick takes place. Initially the brand was “Starbucks Coffee Tea and Spices” and later, with the arrival of Howard Shultz in the 1980s, the concept changed to Starbucks Coffee, finally becoming what it is today.
Origin and its connection with the designer
As the story referred to sailors, it was understood that the symbol should also correspond. With the help of designer Terry Hakcler, inspired by this navigational environment and Herman Melville’s book, an image was created that had a connection with history and was curiously linked to the city of Seattle.
Heckler found an illustration of a Norwegian book from the 15th century and found the idea that instead of being sirens on the rocks seducing sailors, the symbol would be a call for people to come and have a cup of coffee. This is how a 16th century Nordic wood engraving was taken, where a siren with two tails seemed to be the ideal, as it referred to the stories told by the sailors.
The Starbucks logo has suffered many changes over the years, and is now recognized by consumers. With the first changes to the logo, the company tried to create an image according to their values. The symbol of the siren has changed four times, and only in 2011 was the definitive image established.
Starbucks consolidated their image by changing their visual identity. With the arrival of the new version, it showed their simplicity, fundamentals and tradition, preserving the elements that make it up — the siren and the color green — creating a cleaner and simpler version, without ever losing their main contribution to the massive recognition of the company by their customers worldwide.
The history of the modifications of each new design of the symbol represents the evolution of the brand through time.
Logo Timeline
1971. Opening of the first store in Seattle at Pike Place Market and creation of the first logo.
First designed in 1971 by Terry Heckleren, the iconic image shown in the logo is based on and represented by the sirens of Nordic mythology. The brown colour of the background represents the colour of the coffee and the earth. This image was made of wood for their use in the first store. For being a female image it quickly gained the acceptance of local customers, mainly men working in the port industry in Washington, for their proximity to the sea.
1982. Howard Schultz joins Starbucks as director of operations and marketing. Starbucks begins supplying coffee to restaurants and espresso bars.
1984. After a trip to Milan the year before, Schultz experienced another perspective on coffee and fell in love with the idea of forming a place to serve coffee and creating the experience of drinking it in a place where people could sit and enjoy coffee, so he tries to convince the founders of Starbucks to test the concept of a coffee shop in downtown Seattle. His proposal was rejected, so he left the company to found his own in 1985.
1985. Since Schultz’s proposal was not accepted, he started his own business, and continued with the attempt to create his desired Italian coffee shop, which he called Il Giornale, the name of Italy’s largest newspaper, which he took as his inspiration to found his first personal brand. The image’s logo also shows the character of Mercury, an important god of commerce in Roman mythology.
Mercury was known for doing business very quickly. For this reason was chosen by Schultz, in addition to the new name, to represent the brand, because in the coffeeshops it would be necessary to serve drinks quickly and have a fast service as well.
The colors used in the design were especially three: white, black and green. The logo created was very similar to Starbucks in terms of the circular design of the typography and the symbol in the center of the image. The objective was not to differentiate from Starbucks, but rather to compete and surpass them, which was finally achieved.
The green color chosen for the logo, instead of brown, came from the idea of representing and transmitting professionalism and tradition, especially with the Italian concept of “Café Expresso Latte” that it intended to deploy in his new stores and achieve a potential difference that would help his growth and local recognition.
1987. Il Giornale, a company created by Schultz, acquired Starbucks with the support of local investors, unifying the two companies and adapting them under the name “Starbucks Corporation”. In addition, the Starbucks logo was changed a second time, changing the colour brown to green. In this way, the corporate colours green, white and black are permanently and definitively changed.
Another adaptation of the logo was the change of the two dots, for the two white stars, to give a more aesthetic look, inspired by the Il Giornale logo. In this same period the image found new challenges. The fact of showing a siren with her breast uncovered showing showing more than she should, could make many people uncomfortable, especially women, so the brand wanted to attract that new public, so changing their image would be a solution.
Another important decision was to modify, in the design of the siren, the shape and style of the hair, to hide the siren’s breasts. In addition, the shape of the symbol was completely circular, keeping the words “Starbucks Coffee” white and removing the words “Tea” and “Spices” for a cleaner and more elegant style. Brown was replaced by green, representing growth, modernization of the company and prosperity. Then the first stores opened in Chicago and Vancouver, Canada.
1992. The Starbucks logo was modified for the third time.
Since 1992, the company has continually expanded in the United States and has become increasingly visible. Such growth leads to new questions about the pose of the siren on the symbol and the brand is questioned.
In addition, the brand presents new challenges such as having a large logo to drive on the trucks, so a redesign of the logo was urgent. The circle around the siren is adjusted to the belly, to avoid showing it, giving more value to the facial expression as the main attraction of the siren, revealing a more energetic and welcoming face, instead of focusing on her body.
2011. In the year of the 40th anniversary celebration, the company changes their image once again, with the renaming of the brand to just the word “Starbucks”, removing the word “Coffee” definitively, simplifying the pronunciation to just one word.
On this occasion, the figure of the siren and the two corporate colors of the brand, which are green and white, are still maintained. This clearly shows how a company over time manages to consolidate itself in people’s minds and continue to be recognized by consumers.
Starbucks has become a synonym for coffee to the world and their strategy is to maintain the legacy they have achieved over the years.
Symbol’s Meaning
The current Starbucks symbol gives more importance to the siren as a corporate image, because with the disappearance of the word “Coffee”, the company wants to transmit a feeling of trust and transparency for greater recognition. Sirens in general bring associations with harmony, gentleness and femininity, in reference to the siren’s silhouette that reflects a warm and friendly face to attract consumers.
The change in 2011 of the logo to only leave the siren symbol represents a moment in which the brand is positioned not only as a seller of coffee drinks, but also as a lifestyle, which over the years has been consolidated, in addition to the large quantity of products that are produced and distributed by the brand.
Colours’s Meaning
Green: Symbolizes balance, naturalness and tradition, suggesting that coffee is natural and not a simple pre-made coffee or chemical that can be bought in a supermarket. This color comes from the change of the second Starbucks logo in 1987 and is related to the money, by which the brand is associated to status and a high quality or premium coffee. Another important concept related to the color green is their responsibility to care for the environment and their employees as the main focus of their business model.
White: Symbolizes optimism, peace and purity, with the intention of transmitting that Starbucks establishments are comfortable places where everybody feels at home, in a calm and quiet place to stay.
Main and Secondary Logo
It consists of the graphic elements of the symbol (the siren) and the logo (the word Starbucks), separately. In the current logo, there are two ways to represent it. The first is the main version and is used less frequently than only the symbol, where the word is below the symbol; and the secondary version is a variation of the logo that can be used in special events.
Previously, the logo was next to the symbol and formed the image of the logo, but with the worldwide recognition of the brand, more importance was given to the symbol than the brand logo. The intention to separate the logo from the symbol happens as a result of the consolidation of the siren’s image as the definitive representation of the brand, since there is a moment when the symbol gains more strength to be identified than the word.
Although the symbol of the present siren has been accepted almost everywhere in the world. There are still places whose culture and religion make a difference. The brand has gone through big challenges when has to be established in a country for the first time. The most notable case was when Starbucks first entered to Saudi Arabia, and despite having successfully entered the country, cultural and religious differences have been a major obstacle in adapting their logo to the location.
Therefore, although the worldwide logo is the symbol of the siren, in order to introduce brand into Arabic culture and be accepted by local consumers, the symbol had to be changed by completely eliminating the image of the naked siren with her breasts covered by her hair, as it was considered morally inappropriate. The symbol has been completely changed, keeping only the star of the siren’s crown on some waves of the sea in the main image.
It should be noted that it is the only country in the world where the symbol is different. Although the rest of the logo has not changed, in most Arab countries the word Starbucks translates into the local language to be recognized more easily, such as ستاربكس (which translates: stārbaks). The same is true for countries such as Israel, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Thailand and specific places like Quebec in Canada; and China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Pinyin.
The environment at Starbucks today is not the same as it was a few years ago. At the beginning of the 21st century, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz left his position because he thought the work on the brand was over, due to the enormous success he had achieved so far.
In 2008, the brand entered a big crisis, which would be the turning point for the company in terms of image and marketing strategy. Schultz returned to the head of the company to try to change the structure of his stores and above all his philosophy, to what it is today. When studying the evolution of the brand, they realized that between 2000 and 2008, the company was more concerned with expansion than with experience and the product itself. This led to an oversight with many factors, such as their workers and the star product, coffee.
Schultz’s return meant a change at the organizational level, and especially a change in design thinking. Through the research of the time, Starbucks discovered that their consumers associated the brand with fast food and that did not essentially represent their original concept, because it disregarded their image, focused only on expansion and forgotten the initial values that the previous CEO wanted to transmit to people from the beginning.
Therefore, from 2008, offering a formidable customer service became the main starting point of their marketing strategy. Not only for the company the product is very important, but also to create and maintain over time a genuine experience that makes people, when they enter their stores, enjoy the experience and return, showing an environment that no one else can offer, as the brand stands out for their authentic service.
Therefore, with this change in mentality, the idea has come into effect that their employees were the most important focus of the company, because they are the ones who provide the best service to their customers.
In 2011, the idea of changing the logo to celebrate the company’s 40th anniversary was central to the new concept they wanted to introduce, as they wanted to change the way consumers saw the brand and make it clear that it was not a fast food brand. The new design reflected these values that today’s consumers appreciate. The symbol, in this case, the siren without the word Starbucks as the only way of recognition, is consolidated as a clean, clear and serious image that the brand wants to communicate.
On the other hand, the creation of a perfect experience for consumers had to be complemented by establishments where people would stay longer. Design and appearance play a very important role and complement the image that, together with the brand symbol, represents the definitive renovation they would need to be successful. The creation of this harmonious atmosphere in their stores, through ambient music, the smell of coffee, personalized service and furniture would define a stunning sensation, which only recurring consumers would know how to appreciate.
