The worldwide coffee company Starbucks have announced that they are changing one of their stores to stock, alongside the coffee and tea, beer and wine. The store that they are trialing the idea on is one of their current stores that’s based in Seattle. However, their range of drinks on the menu isn’t the only change happening, Starbucks are also taking down their iconic company logo design from the shop front.

You also won’t find their logo on any of the products for sale.

With these new stores, Starbucks can get away without having to design a logo for this new store, they are just going to name it after the street it’s located on. The new trial store will be called 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea and alongside the new menu changes, the store will be open late and offer entertainment in the form of live music and poetry readings.

A number of competitors believe that the coffee shop giant is trying to create these secret stores to pull in another part of the market that wouldn’t normally buy their coffee from a big brand. However, will it really be that difficult to see the Starbucks brand behind the stores?

Although this move has come as a shock for some, Starbucks were forced to move in a new way due to the credit crunch. When Starbucks first become extremely popular in the early 90’s, they started to revolutionise coffee buying. Many people began to see the brand appearing all around the world, and on TV, and they were now willing to pay extra for their special latte’s. However, due to the current credit crunch, many people are seeing this as a luxury and with the introduction of cheaper coffee shop competition, Starbucks have had to close some of its stores.

In the last year, Starbucks have been forced to close down around 900 shops and cut 8000 jobs across their 16000 stores. If the coffee giant doesn’t alter it’s direction, yet more of their stores could be lost in the upcoming months. This is why they are trialing a new type of un-branded store, if it goes to plan, we could see a range of these appearing on our streets in the not too distant future. Whether these stores would carry their own logos, therefore widening Starbuck’s logo portfolio, we’ll just have to see what happens.

Filed under: Branding

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