If you ask me, Starbucks' recent mistakes have been:
- Ridiculous brand extensions. I really don't want Starbucks breakfast beyond muffins and coffee cakes, and the brand can't seem to figure out what it wants to do, either. And I'm not paying $6 for a shrinkwrapped chicken sandwich. The coffee shop atmosphere just isn't conducive to a meal.
- Dunkin' and McDonald's slowly but surely crept into the premium coffee industry. Starbucks got scared when their sales took a dip and tried to compete with price promotions and the aforementioned food. But it doesn't seem as though McD's is really stealing away that many faithful Starbucks drinkers. Are real Starbucks customers really trading down to fast food? Or are there other reasons (brand dilution, a Starbucks atmosphere that has strayed from its roots, and yes, the economy) that have them skipping their morning joe?
- MyStarbucksIdea.com. Creating a social network for people to basically complain about the brand and offer ideas that will never ever get implemented was maybe not the smartest idea.
This election giveaway is icing on the GOODBYE AND GOOD LUCK! cake for Starbucks. Maybe they just expanded too fast and erroneously thought they could mix luxury prices with a mass audience. Maybe consumers really are remembering that $4 a day not spent on coffee could help buy next week's groceries. In any case, I'll be at work in the morning and at the Bob Dylan show in the evening, so I'll probably miss out on this sad promotion from the former coffee giant.
*Or in the case of our very own Erin Lamberty, the mighty have fallen, torn three ligaments in their knee, bruised and swollen beyond recognition, and been placed in an immobilizer until further notice. That probably describes Starbucks even better.
3 comments:
I think I disagree with you on some of this. I agree that the brand extensions were a BAD idea--it's awful walking in expecting to smell coffee and smelling....is that eggs? Ugh. Unpleasant. The straying from aesthetic is also a terrible mistake, but one that didn't seem to go too terribly far.
But the pricing probably isn't too bad an idea--the price have coffee has become a benchmark of how much $ people spend. ("Our cable package is only $20 per month--THAT'S ONLY FOUR COFFEES!") and they're still not competing in the same price point as McD's, just making Starbucks a little more accessible. We all complained when they raised prices, now we can celebrate that they're back down. No one is saying Starbucks is cheap...
But the piece I most disagree with you on is the giveaway. While I recognize it's not typical of a premium-priced brand, the act was still very on-brand. Starbucks has supported the music community (sometimes local), been active in philanthropy (Ethos water, etc), and have been increasingly political (including starting to distribute the weekly circular Good Magazine). If Starbucks was a person, I think they'd want you to vote. Don't you? It seems pretty fitting.
For this reason, I almost see this distribution as a return to brand. We'll have to see where they go from here.
I don't think that jumping on the "get free shit when you vote" bandwagon was very on brand for Starbucks. I think they would have fared far better giving away their product on say a fair trade coffee day than a day when many other companies are also doing giveaways. They are just asking to get lost in the sea of giveaways (think people on Wash Ave who jumped from Sbucks to Ben and Jerry's to Chipotle just to get free stuff).
Sbucks just doesn't give things away, not even on your bday (like Caribou).
Even if Sbucks was gettin' out the vote and wanted to involve those that were doing their civic duty, it might have been a better idea to do something that gave people an incentive to stick around and have the actual Sbucks experience (free wifi for a day, coupon for later when people don't have to battle the lines). The people I saw waited forever to get into Sbucks and then bolted out as soon as they got their "made in a rush frappacino".
Sure, many people went to Sbucks for a free drink, but how many of those people are really going to return and become regular customers? 2%? or skim? I think if they really were wanting to give away their product they should have focused on an event that got people who are actually likely to become customers to try their products. It would be a return to brand if it was more focused (try all our flavors of coffee day, or try new latte day) instead of just a free for all.
I certainly see how Starbucks could get lost in it, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping to get my free coffee AND ben and jerry's that day (although instead I just stayed inside, glued to CNN).
And I thought the same thing about whether or not this would convert people into regular customers and how they could have given customers an incentive to stick around, but I don't think that needs to be part of the equation for Starbucks and here's why:
Starbucks has practically 100% trial amongst coffee drinkers. While Starbucks has been losing market share and is closing locations, they used to be completely saturated with customers. So instead of convincing people to try Starbucks, it was a lot more about bringing people back to old habits, remind them what they liked about their past routine of a stop into Starbucks and perhaps start those folks back on their old ways.
As for the idea about inviting them in for free wifi, a coupon for a coffee later, a "introducing our new latte day" etc. I think that just seems all the MORE gimmicky and off-brand. Let's assume for a minute that Starbucks really is a sincere brand that wanted to give back to concerned citizens who went out to vote. Adding something like "free wifi for the day!" would suddenly seem transparently gimmicky. And while I know where you're coming from in terms of making sure the event actually does something for the company and converts to sales, if Sbucks had never done the giveaway and you found out they were going to do a "free today new latte!", I think we as ad folks would have more to gripe about with it being off-brand.
ps. the word verification for this comment is "mantater" and it made me laugh. "have you seen his man-tater yet?" :)
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