Starbucks' mermaid problem

In response to a dire business atmosphere - plummeting stock, McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts both promoting their coffee as worthy alternatives, a "recession" in which consumers seem hesitant to keep shelling out $4 for a coffee - Starbucks has introduced a new fresh brewed coffee with a revival of their original mermaid logo.

The "new" original logo looks like it belongs to a much smaller coffee shop, a shop that has one or two stores in a rainy northwest city, a shop that cares more about quality and character than the bottom line - the shop that Starbucks used to be. The logo works because it revitalizes the brand's "authenticity." It says, "Remember! We are not McDonalds, nor Dunkin Donuts."

But I think the logo works for another, probably inadvertent reason. Let's start with the proposition that coffee shops are sexy. The aroma, the young professionals, the couches, the caffeine high - it's a daytime, safe alternative to scaring away potential mates at a bar. As Starbucks has grown, they've lost this sensuality. In parallel, the mermaid logo has lost her sensuality. She's gone from a tail=spreading siren to a vapid stencil-creature.

The new logo revives - let's say subliminally - the sexiness of the coffee shop. Mermaid have a history of seduction (see the Odyssey and The Little Mermaid) and the tail-spreading technique nods to the age-old "mermaid problem."