I particularly focus on Starbucks marketing because, as pointed out in an earlier blog, I see a mythological battle.
Starbucks went after the
Lefty market in the urban world. That is very clear from their sale of
the New York Times newspaper in every American retail outlet, their
sale of Jazz records in retail outlets and the hapless convoluted
efforts they made to buy organic coop grown coffee.
The Lefties hate Starbucks.
I can't get a single hard core Lefty friend to meet me at Starbucks, they can't be seen there.The mythological battle is the man or woman who loves another and the other disdains them. Unrequited love.
With
this model Starbucks store in Seattle (photos on the right) Starbucks continues to go the wrong direction. This store
is a cleaned up copy of the kind of sloppy, messy living room, college
dorm style that is beloved by the pseudo-bohemian Left. Starbucks, with this store, is
again chasing unrequited love.
Even with a new name for this Seattle
store, like Budweiser and Coors' attempt to sell phony micro-brew
beers with pseudo names, customers will still know that it is Starbucks.
Americans will always prefer McDonald's and USA Today and the Wall Street
Journal to the New York Times, but Starbucks doesn't get it.
The real direction I see in coffee retailing design is toward 'workplace conviviality'. Clean, automobile-like and comfortable for everyone from tea drinkers, to diet soft drinkers, to beer and wine drinkers in the evenings. (Photo on the left.)
Americans are getting more like Japanese. We want a convivial place to meet and hang out with friends in public; and sometimes we want a place to work since we have become hardworking people.
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PS I visited the experimental Starbucks 15th Ave Tea and Coffee store in Seattle. The design is as bad or worse than I thought. Pure sentimental grunge. It even has wooden auditorium chairs from some elementary school. Not workable anywhere else in America, except Capital Hill Seattle and downtown Santa Cruz. The business part is a different story... it is superb. Choose from three bean approaches: blend, single origin or estate. Get it ground into a filter then choose filter drip, French press or Clover. Wine and beer are available. (No soft drinks or diet; mistake) Fresh sandwiches and fish plates; I had the sardine plate. (Great!). Well run with a convivial atmosphere.
