SAN DIEGO - STARBUCKS now has a new, more revealing logo of its trademark mermaid.

The logo - which offers a more revealing look at the coffee chain's mermaid symbol and goes with brown instead of green as its colour - is getting mixed reviews from marketing and public relations experts.

'It's unusual,' said Ms Sally Baker, who runs Scottsdale- based Great Ideas Public Relations. 'I'm not sure most people will get it.'

The logo features a bare-chested mermaid with her tail fin split in half. The previous green logo showed less of the mermaid.

The company - whose stock price has more than halved over the past two years - insists that the new logo is merely part of a temporary promotion.

But critics are not buying it. Neither are they buying any more non-fat double-shot grande soy mocha lattes, the Times of London said.

A San Diego-based Christian group, The Resistance, has already called on its 3,000 members to boycott the chain, whose mass expansion has threatened to turn its once hip coffee lounges into McDonald's-style fast- food outlets.

'The Starbucks logo has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute,' said Mr Mark Dice, the group's founder. 'Need I say more? The company might as well call itself Slutbucks.'

Undeterred, Starbucks says that the logo will appear on its cups - the company's shopfront insignia has not been changed - for 'several more weeks' and will live on indefinitely as the logo of its Pike Place bags of coffee.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on May 31, 2008.

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