The other day I was thinking about why I had never seen a commercial for Starbucks on television or even a YouTube ad for their products. I’ve seen commericals for Dunkin’ Donuts and Tim Hortons as well as other fast food places so what excluded Starbucks from this form of advertisement? This brought me to wonder how did Starbucks make themselves so popular and continue to stay popular even through the years of changes in trends.
I also found that Starbucks spends substantially less on advertising than other companies. In 2005, Starbucks spent $87.7 million on billboards, online advertisements, and signs. In comparison, Coca-Cola spent $2.5 billion and Nike spent $1.7 billion. Instead of normal advertisements, Starbucks has events and parties. For example, a Miami Art Museum exhibit called “Big, Juicy Paintings” was partnered with Starbuck’s launch of their juice-based frappuccinos. Somehow Starbucks has managed to use the “old-school” way of advertising when mass media is the norm.
The first reason I found is that Starbucks made the category for coffee consumption: a start to someone’s morning, a place for people to do work, a place to hold a meeting. It integrated the idea of having a cup of coffee with a friend or co-worker into the daily life of an American. A four-dollar cup of coffee seems like a reasonable price to everyone even though employees could get a free cup of coffee from their work lounge. Even in our lives as highschool students, most of us get coffee together and the commonplace we all go is Starbucks. Some other reasons I found was that Starbucks offers a more dark, bold roast compared to other coffee suppliers. The way of ordering a drink at Starbucks using the size “grande” gives a special touch compared to “medium”.
These factors add up to the idea of perceived value. That four-dollar cup of coffee not only gives you the value of caffeine but also emotional and social value. Going to an event promoting a product gives someone an experience while indulging in the product, making them more inclined to buy it later on. Even though Starbucks may not have the best coffee, the value of the experience and brand encourages consumers to buy it and continuing buying.
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I really like how you applied marketing to something very relevant to us, like coffee. It never really occurred to me Starbucks didn't advertise in the traditional ways we see today. This is also similar to coffee places like Philz and Peet's that offer similar values like Starbucks to the perceived value. It's really interesting to see how marketing affects the companies we commonly are customers of, and how different methods affect our consumption. I agree that Starbucks isn't my favorite coffee, nor the most reasonably priced coffee, but the perceived value I get from its environment and idea of it make me a common customer.
ReplyDeleteI think that Starbucks coffee is a great example of how perceived value connects with marketing techniques and even incentives. It is interesting that we are incentivized to drink this coffee even when we might not think it is the best, just because our emotional and social values are impacted greatly by different marketing strategies. This also relates to utility, as it is able to satisfy these values which is why we still buy it.
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