Tweet

Starbucks Commercials

Guest post by: Starbucks Starbucks

Article Overview: Ask any regular Starbucks customer how many Starbucks commercials they have seen in their lifetime and you are almost guaranteed to get a response of ‘one’ or ‘none’. That is not to say that coffee drinkers are now watching less television. Rather, the lack of Starbucks commercials highlights the company’s unique advertising strategy – don’t advertise.

Starbucks Commercials

Ask any regular Starbucks customer how many Starbucks commercials they have seen in their lifetime and you are almost guaranteed to get a response of ‘one’ or ‘none’. That is not to say that coffee drinkers are now watching less television. Rather, the lack of Starbucks commercials highlights the company’s unique advertising strategy – don’t advertise.

Sure, there are one or two Starbucks commercials, but the company is hesitant to focus on traditional methods of advertising. “It really is about connecting with someone in a more intimate, experiential way that we think will have longer lasting ability to build affinity than a 30-second TV commercial or an ad,” says Senior Vice-President of Marketing at Starbucks Anne Saunders.

Instead of producing Starbucks commercials for the masses, the company chooses instead to focus on the customer’s in-store experience. “You can be extraordinarily successful as a business using what people would call non-traditional means,” says Saunders. “It’s expanded my notion of how important experience versus information or one-way communication can be.”

The average Starbucks customer visits the store six times per month while the heaviest 20% of customers go to Starbucks at least 16 times per month. Thus, company executives feel that improving the in-store customer experience is a much more effective means of advertising than via Starbucks commercials. Starbucks encourages the promotion of their stores as a ‘third home’, providing comfortable chairs for customers to relax and spend time in, playing music and providing outlets for people to plug their laptops into. So far, as Starbucks surpassed the 10,000 mark for number of outlets worldwide, it seems that word of mouth advertising has worked more wonders than Starbucks commercials might.

Nevertheless, in an ironic twist of fate, the few Starbucks commercials that this anti-commercial company did release have achieved huge popularity, with an almost cult-like following. One of the Starbucks commercials for DoubleShot features ‘Glen’, who drinks a can in the morning before going to work while the band Survivor sings about his ambitions to the tune of their hit single Eye of the Tiger. In another of the Starbucks commercials, ‘Stacey’ takes a break at work to drink her Frappuccino while a doo-wop band sings and keeps her bosses away.

In a joint venture with Pepsi-Cola, these Starbucks commercials have admittedly driven up sales and have received very positive feedback. A survey of these Starbucks commercials reported that 26% of respondents liked them a lot and that they appealed equally to men and women. Key to both Starbucks commercials was the music.

While happy with the result of these Starbucks commercials, company executives insist they’ll stick to focusing on creating a unique and welcoming first-hand experience in all of their retail outlets, a task that gets harder with each new store they launch. They do not rule out the possibility of producing new Starbucks commercials in the future, but for now, they are keeping busy trying to think about marketing and advertising in a unique and different way. So far, so good.

Related Articles
  Get Naked and Grow Your Green Business Today!
  Fork It Over: The DOs & DON’Ts of Data Collections
  What Starbucks can do for your business
  Victory for Starbucks in Tip-Pooling Class Action
  Lesson #3: Build a Strong Brand

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
Starbucks: Licensing vs Joint-Venture - Hello there i have a few questions, i would like to hear from you some ideas and opinions for my case study... 1) Why do you think Starbucks has recently elected to expand internationally primarily through local joint-ventures, to whom it licenses its format, as opposed to a pure licensing strategy? 2) And I was also wondering, what are the advantages of a joint-venture entry mode for Starbucks over entering though wholly owned subsidiaries? On occasion, Starbucks has chosen a wholly owned subsidiary to control its foreign expansion, e.g. uk or thailand? why? 3)And which theory of FDI best explains the international expansion strategy adopted by Starbucks? Thanks for helping me... Best Guy
Re: Why isn't Starbucks instant coffee selling? - I believe that's their strategy... Starbucks is making breakfast sandwiches and bagels now. They're definitely preparing for battle. Maybe there will be Starbucks Diners in the future?
The Starbuck's experience - [quote="Sebastien":3j66y8cv]Being French, I don't really understand what you call the Starbucks experience. We didn't have coffee shops in France until a couple years ago when (surprise!) Starbucks came in. So what's the Starbucks experience? Waiting in line 10 minutes for a cup of coffee? haha I think I understand what you're saying though. I think Starbucks has had tough competition lately with a bunch of coffee shop brands popping up and this is a natural move away from their core business (an actual coffee shop). We're seeing that Starbucks are actually not as profitable as everybody thought. As a side note, I've always said that some day there will be a huge financial scandal about Starbucks. A company just can't grow that fast in a healthy way. Anyways. So Starbucks is calling back founder and old CEO (I'm too lazy to look up his name on Google) to put Starbucks back on track and these vending machines might be some of his first projects. I think it is great to take advantage of such a good brand and do extend it further than a coffee shop.[/quote:3j66y8cv] Hi Sebastien, According to branding expert Martin Lindstrom, "Starbucks' objective is to create an intimate and even romantic atmosphere...The lighting is subdued to keep it cozy. The chairs and floor may be a little scuffed, but that makes it feel comfy and homely, and less intimidating...The music is soothing and sophisticated" (BRANDsense 158). So the Starbucks experience is essentially founder Howard Schultz's recreation of the coffee bar culture in Milan and the reason why they feel they can charge people outrageous prices for coffee. In fact, Starbucks isn't selling coffe, they're selling a unique and memorable brand experience to their customers.
New McDonalds McCafe concept... - It will be interesting to see whether this idea takes off in Japan. Here in Hiroshima there are at least 4 Starbucks that I can think of, and probably more, and several MacDonalds... as well as a lot of home-grown competition. Of course, MacD already sells coffee, and I'm not sure that expanding will dent Starbucks because I guess they appeal to different market niches... Could hurt MadDonalds more...
Re: Advantages with Social Media Sites - Social Media sites make good business for you, if you know how to use them. I learnt that Starbucks has more that 20 million likes on Facebook. This shows that it is easy for Starbucks to interact with these people. Lady Gaga has 17 million followers on twitter. She can market to them easily with a singe tweet.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Do You Pretend To Listen To People?

Soda Vending Machine = Energy Hog

Coaching Tip: Identify Your Core Values

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.