The Marketing Strategy Of Starbucks

Starbucks has developed a brand image that has revolutionized coffee drinking experience. It has created an ambiance that is designed to attract customers and keep them coming back to Starbucks stores. It offers wide varieties of services such as comfortable seating areas with unique music and free wireless Internet for their customers while sipping their favorite coffee. This distinctiveness sets Starbucks apart from most of its competitors and has allowed the company to successfully grow and profit while charging premium prices for their products.

Starbucks has created a competitive advantage with their product quality by setting themselves apart from their competitors. “The Company has stayed with the upper-scale of the coffee market, competing on comfort rather than convenience, which is the case with its closest competitors, McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts” (Mourdoukoutas, Panos). Consumers believe they are receiving a better product and experience when they purchase from a Starbucks as opposed to another large food service company that may sell coffee.

Starbucks was always certain about one thing: they wanted to offer each customer the ‘Starbucks experience,’ or to sell the finest quality of coffee in a comfortable atmosphere. The local environment was studied to implement effective strategies to drive success for the business. Their entry strategies included marketing and sales events with a series of public relations to build brand awareness. They served free coffee and presented new drinks for tasting. While a range of competitors entered the business, Starbucks rose to the occasion. After analyzing the business tactics of their competitors, the company made the necessary approaches to ensure success. They began opening stores on the high-end popular streets, and then branching out even further. Starbucks constantly offers new products in their stores across the USA, Turkey and the dozens of other countries they reside in. Adapting their atmosphere and business strategies to the needs of the customers keeps both their revenue high and patrons satisfied.

Starbucks is a leader in the coffee industry and a mogul in the business world. Starbucks is now the largest chain in the world of coffee houses. They purchase and roast whole bean coffees to sell, along with handmade tea beverages, food items, and coffees that are sold inside their retail stores. “As of Oct 3 2010, Co. has 8,833 company-operated retail stores and 8,025 licensed stores worldwide (Starbucks)”. To maximize brand recognition and brand awareness to become the most respected and recognized in the coffee world, Starbucks implanted a marketing program that uses marketing mix to satisfy the wants and needs of its large target audience. Discused below is the breakdown of the marketing mix: product,

Starbucks Corporation is a Seattle (USA) based largest coffeehouse company in the world representing one of the most recognizable logos and continually expanding with diversification approach. It operates in over 50 countries with 19,767 stores1 (as of Sep’2013) including the stores in USA and has more than 7,800 franchise units worldwide. It has a wide variety of product lines along with coffee which included but not limited to beverages, pastries, fresh food, whole coffee beans and merchandise. Many of its products are seasonal and specific to the culture or local responsiveness of the country they are doing business.

Society today is deeply sensitive. As time moves on, people find more and more avenues in which to be offended. People today are offended by what others wear, the use of the word “man” in the Bible, and nearly anything else where an excuse may be formulated. It appears the only way to avoid offending someone or stirring up controversy is for one to simply to sit quietly at a table and drink their morning coffee. However, it turns out there is a chance of offending someone quite deeply by even doing this. Starbucks unveiled their 2015 holiday cups on the first of November. The simple, blank red cups have created a large amount of controversy regarding whether or not they should have used the words “Merry Christmas.” A Christian blogger named Joshua Feuerstein posted a video on Facebook four days later, where he declares that Starbucks “hates Jesus.” Starbucks responds that they are simply attempting to create an open environment, and are enabling others to draw their own stories and experiences on their cups (Whitten 1). However, as is becoming increasingly common with the current generation, they are ignoring an obvious fact: it is just a cup of coffee. As this battle rages on, there is little if any good that will come as a result. Overall, society needs to realize that some issues are insignificant, and taking them as seriously and as personally as many people do causes more harm than good.

Starbucks have been able to create a sense of brand loyalty with their loyal customers. Despite their inflated prices, they have established a monopolistically competitive market structure because they found out how to benefit their customer, leverage the company widely to many products and markets, and create ideas that are different from competitors. Starbucks’ logo, quality, and various trademarks differentiate their brand from their competitors. In order to focus on their primary competencies by differentiating themselves has made Starbucks become drastically succeed. Product differentiation offers differentiators such as premium product mix, locations, coffee beverages reputation and supreme customer service that promote to establish a premium valued brand. Starbucks also has an astute strategy of strategic alliance and

After considering several factors, I have decided to choose topic 18: review of the marketing strategy of an organisation and its effectiveness for this research and analysis project (RAP). The organisation that I have chosen for this RAP is Starbucks Corporation (Starbucks).

Founded in 1971, Starbucks has taken the coffee industry by storm. With thousands of licensed stores around the world, Starbucks is arguably the largest coffee company around. They’re well known for their handcrafted premium coffees and teas; which are also sold in many retail and grocery stores like Wal-Mart and Metro respectively. They also serve a variety of original and fresh food items to further their brand and help satisfy their customers. This ensures that Starbucks has the greatest opportunity to dominate the market; as they are saturating every area available. Higher exposure and customer loyalty leads to increased growth and profit for the company. Starbuck’s approach is heavily focused on the differentiation strategy; which requires the company to develop products and service that are unique in their market. Companies who use this strategy must serve customers at an exceptional level; with all departments being high quality. Instead of following the industry’s main competitors, Starbucks recognized that they could take advantage of the missing products in the coffee industry. Instead of following chains like Tim Horton’s and Dunkin Donuts, seeks to provide exclusive that are admired by their audience. Differentiation is incredibly attractive as it allows the company to be more flexible with their products and has the highest potential to be very sustainable – especially at a low cost. Starbuck’s specializes

Starbucks have played various roles over the last years to become the global contributor that added value to the society. The Company implemented a strategy of expanding its stores. It developed a geographical expansion of a three year strategy that targeted the areas that had favorable demographic profiles with the company's operation infrastructure. Its selection of the targeted region which served as a hub supported the goal of opening more stores. The Company oversaw the expansion process by creating zones that directed development for each region to implant its culture by opening new stores. The store launched grew steadily and more successful and in 1995 there were about 17,000 stores that fully served his customers (McGraw-Hill Companies, 1999).

As a consultant for Starbucks, it was interesting to review a multinational company that operates in 62 countries and has 19,000 stores (Starbucks Corporation, 2013). It is apparent that success lives within the offerings of high quality coffee with a 3 billion base of customers enjoying the products. The company has a strong commitment to buying and serving high-quality coffee and consumers have savored the coffee and the prestigious brand. Starbucks arsenal not only consists of the signature Starbucks brand but also goods and services under names such as Teavana, Tazo, Seattle’s Best Coffee, Starbucks VIA, Starbucks Refreshers, Evolution Fresh, La Boulange and Verismo. All of the intricacies that make Starbucks a big success also offer challenges to the company that puts more weight on an effective strategic management process.

Therefore, this strategy supports the overall brand quality of Starbucks as the “premier coffee,” yet captures additional customers that do not seek the branded Starbuck experience and would likely choose one the niche competitors. This strategy can cater to a slightly different clientele – in both coffee stores and supermarkets – and increase overall corporate revenues.

can order and pay for their drinks in a flash while stacking up rewards for each purchase made. This Strategy has significantly drawn people to Starbucks due to its highly anticipated services, products, and marketing strategies that differ from most fast food restaurants. The next service is the Starbucks webpage where the customers can go onto the site and view product and also make purchases. This service is quite excellent for those that want to checkout items online through the site, because it incorporates a similar process as the application on your smartphone. Starbucks also incorporates equipment and drinkware to their massive line of products. First their Drinkware consists of cups and mugs that are affordable to the customers. These cups come in many colors and aesthetic values, which make people interested in purchasing. Starbucks had the right idea when they decided to manufacture these cups out to their customers because not only were they a huge success for the business, but it also made Starbucks distribute more merchandise. Cold cups, which were from stainless steel containers. These containers made a rise once the popularity rose for other merchandise. These containers were sold very often to customers and once again made a surprise since it was from the same line of cups and mugs category. As more popularity grew in their products so did the equipment used to make customers coffee. First Starbucks decided to manufacture coffee makers, presses, and expresso

The Starbucks brand was founded in 1971 in Seattle, when an English teacher Jerry Baldwin, a History teacher Zev Siegl, and a writer Gordon Bowker decided to open their own coffee shop. Now, Starbucks is the most successful coffee company in the world that serves coffee in 65 countries in more than 23000 stores. Among professional young adults, Starbucks is the brand of coffee shop that makes coffee-drinking experience unique because of its high-quality service. In the most countries Starbucks remains to be a leader in coffee business. The success of the company in its Global Marketing shows that Starbucks founds the way to bring the product across cultures, maintaining the core business values untouched. The company maintains to be a “third place” between home and work and positioned as an “affordable luxury”.

Promoting products is something Starbucks does differently from most businesses. It does not bombard the public through advertisements. Instead, Starbucks competes on the merits of its products and services in all sales and advertising. Communications with current and potential customers are truthful and accurate; everything must be substantiated and cannot disparage its competitors (Starbucks, 2010). The majority of advertising campaigns have been directed to customers who have registered to receive e-mails and other notifications.