What is Pepsi thinking?

Pepsi has announced that they are undergoing a drastic relaunching of their branding and packaging to bring "new life" to their flagship brands. The most dramatic element is a redesign of the Pepsi Globe logo, which for some reason is now supposed to represent a smile.

"Pepsi’s Chief Marketing Officer Dave Burwick set the tone for the change at a meeting of Pepsi bottlers when he said “If we don’t change quickly, we run the risk of being a footnote to history,” according to Beverage Digest.

PepsiCo Chief Executive Officer Indra Nooyi told BD she didn’t expect the changes to immediately stop the decline of Pepsi CSDs in the face of a difficult economy, but she expects the initiative to slow the decline until it eventually flattens out.

BD also reported that the changes generally excited bottlers, and that Frank Cooper, vice president of sparkling brands, promised to help bottlers convert their fleet to display the new Pepsi Imagery, which is due to hit the market late this year or in early 2009." via BevNet

What are they thinking? Seriously, this is a big step backwards in my opinion. With the change to the classic Pepsi globle logo, it looks like a cheap knockoff brand. I don't get it, just how is this supposed to increase or even sustain sales in a dwindling economy? Your thoughts?