Thanks to their company policy of ruthlessly buying out locally-owned coffee shops the world over, (RIP Caffe Espresso, 1993-2008,) Starbucks has a logo that everyone except, maybe, these guys, recognizes. So when they switched it up on us for a promotion, someone was bound to eventually make a comment of some kind, no matter what it was.

Of course it turned out to be the original Pike Place logo, slightly retouched to cover up the mermaid’s nipples. She was probably getting cold anyway. Despite Starbucks’ best efforts at modesty, some consumers couldn’t keep their perverted minds away from the fact that not only is she topless, but she seems to be holding her slimy tail fins wide open for whoever comes swimming by.

I actually thought I was the only pervert to notice… but as it turns out, a Christian group in San Diego called The Resistance (jerks. I wanted to use that one for something,) have also been unable to avert their gaze, and are causing a frothy stir in Starbucks’ new coffee promotion.

Not to defend Starbucks for anything, but after reading several articles mentioning The Resistance and their vendetta against a logo supposedly based on traditional Norse imagery, I went ahead and looked them up.  They have one of the worst websites I’ve ever seen in my life, and for all intents and purposes, seem to be no more than a thinly-veiled publicity scheme started by one guy to sell his book. I’m not even going to bother linking it… it’s so terrible. But I guess I have to give the dude some credit for managing to get his crappy book publicized by major news sources all over the world.

So excluding "The Resistance", I think the promotional logo seems to have gone over swimmingly. I prefer it.

Here’s some boobies:

Thanks BBC News, AdRants, and probably a couple other people I forgot.