Today Starbucks rolled out a new look for it's cups.  Gone is the familiar green mermaid logo and in it's place a more vintage representation of the Queen of the Sea.  In fact, it's not even green... it's all-brown.  Starbucks has been making an effort to reinvent itself and appear to be returning to it's roots.  Last month, CEO Howard Schultz even closed every store in America for three hours simultaneously for "values training."  Even though a temporary change, the new cup is not well received by branding consultants...

They took a logo that was lively and made it dull,” says Alan Siegel, chairman and chief executive of Siegel+Gale, the big brand consultant that has done work for American Express, Dell and many others. “If they’re trying to communicate a message about going back to their roots, the cup doesn’t work.”

Brand consultant Al Ries of Ries & Ries puts it another way. “Brown is probably the worst possible color [for a logo],” he says. “The reason UPS has been successful with it is that no one else wants to touch the color."

What do you think? Is the new Starbucks cup with its brown, retro logo better or worse than the traditional green-logo version? Do you even care?