Did you see the latest earnings report for Starbucks? Well, their earnings rose from 16 cents a share to 24 cents and beat Wall Street expectations. Of course the WSJ says this is because of cost cutting while the marketing bloggers believe it’s because of Starbuck’s marketing. After all, they have over 3.5 million fans on Facebook so that must mean their marketing is working.

Infuriating! So now we are measuring brand strength and brand health by how many fans it has on Facebook! Look, it does not take a branding connoisseur to recognize that a rise in earnings is not typically related to a singular event. Yes, cost cutting can have significant impact on an earnings report, but that alone will not increase earnings. Marketing can take some credit, but let’s not get too greedy here. In Starbucks case, their executive team voiced a need to improve customer service many months ago. Perhaps that was one of the factors that impacted profits. Moreover, let’s not forget all the coffee advertising from McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts that quite possibly helped further buoy the entire coffee category.

How much of Starbucks’ resurgence was because the management team realized that the brand needed to be managed? Its mercurial rise was coming to an end. It was experiencing pain on several fronts: Too many unprofitable stores, diminished customer service, lower priced competitors, a dismal economy, and more. Perhaps it was the economy that helped them realize that they needed to refocus. Whatever the case, let’s not assume it was a singular thing that helped turn this brand around. It was more likely a concerted effort by all within the organization…helped by consumers willing to spend a little more of their hard earned dollars on an expensive cup of coffee.

What goes through your mind when you hear that a company has changed its name? If you’re like me, you think, “why?” And right after that, you think, “Did they do it for the right reasons, or the wrong reasons?”

Corporations, like people, change their names for different reasons. Corporations merge and separate, just like people marry and divorce. And the resulting name changes follow similar patterns: One name takes precedence over the other (e.g., Citibank over Travelers), or the names are combined (e.g., DaimlerChrysler). More rarely, completely new names are created. Occasionally, corporations change their name to their most dominant product brand due to momentum of that brand’s awareness (e.g., Oracle). And sometimes, just like people, companies change their name to start over and escape the past.

Fair enough. But when a company changes its name to start over, particularly when it is trying to escape misdeeds or mishaps of the past rather than merely adjusting to changing circumstances (e.g., Valujet becoming Airtrans) doesn’t it behoove the company to explain how it has changed (e.g., new management, new goals, new ethics, etc)? Otherwise, people can’t be certain whether the name change was signaling a real new beginning, or was just a cosmetic—if not deceptive—move motivated by financial gain alone.

Or are we as consumers so inattentive or shallow that it doesn’t matter?