The Blanding of Starbucks

A First Peek at My Book

👋, I’m Kimberly. I’ve been creating obsession-worthy brands for the past fifteen years. And now, I’m giving away my secrets every week in this newsletter.

I wrote a book on branding. It's called Unbland. And it's 108K words right now 😳.

As I start the editing process, I’ll be sharing exclusive excerpts. Here's the very first peek, starting with the story of…

The Blanding of Starbucks

Historically, brands get more bland the bigger they grow. It's a vicious cycle - because the bigger and bigger your audience gets, the more and more people you want to attract. And to attract more and more people, brands let go of many of their distinctions, because those distinctions are turning some people off and acting as barriers to entry. To see this practice in action, you can look at the evolution of the logos of many iconic and ubiquitous companies.

One of my favorite of these is Starbucks. In its early days, the Starbucks logo was not so PC as it is now. That alluring mermaid, meant to represent the siren calling you into the brand, would have been banned by Instagram had she been a human—because of her exposed breasts.

As the brand expanded, so did our mermaid’s modesty. She got more sharp and streamlined, and more zoomed in—eventually losing most of her twin tails and her belly button too.

To celebrate its 40th anniversary, Starbucks released a decidedly less bland version of its logo—a modern update of the original with boobs, a belly button, more belly, and all.

The backlash was immediate. It was too much for customers who expected more blandness. And Starbucks reacted by leaning even harder in the bland direction, focusing entirely on the siren’s face in the logo and giving her an actual facelift with more technically symmetrical eyes, nose, and hair.

Starbuck's explanation for this change was simple: they wanted to appeal to and connect with more audiences worldwide.  They were growing, and they had to become more bland.
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Keep following along as I dive into the notes from my brilliant editor and post more excerpts from Unbland along the way!

Sign up for exclusive excerpts before the book is released, plus early access once it’s ready for the world! 👉👉👉 https://www.kimberlybrizzolara.com/unbland

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More About Me

• I’ve created indie darling brands (Biossance, Patchology, exa), developed Fortune 500 brands (Netflix, Gap, Wyndham), rebranded global brands (Crabtree & Evelyn, Paula's Choice), founded my own DTC brand (Archer), and run in-house teams for brands (Sephora).

• My work has won over 80 awards—including Clios, Addys & 30 Under 30. And I was recently named one of the Forbes Next 1000.

• I earned my BA and MA at Stanford, where wrote my thesis on the negative mental effects of gender stereotypes in advertising. And today, I devote 100% of my time to working with founders who are 100% committed to using their brands’ impact for good—developing healthy mental models for a better world.