The Starbucks Experience. Does The New Ad Campaign Deliver It?

This new campaign, which focuses on the coffee, flies in the face of what put Starbucks on the map in the first place.

Starbucks sells a commodity ... but they do it by weaving an emotional experience and connection throughout the purchase. In all 13 or 14 thousand stores ... all over the world ... the promise of a great experience is the same, and is delivered every time. That's what has differentiated Starbucks over the years. If consumers were only getting coffee, no matter how good ... at those prices, Starbucks would have been out of business long ago.

I'm just not sure this campaign about the coffee does justice to the Starbucks experience or the original brand promise.

In 1998, Howard Schultz told Fortune Magazine that ... "the goal of Starbucks was to add value to a commodity typically purchased on supermarket aisles. Starbucks is not a trend. We're a lifestyle." Scott Bedbury, the Marketing Director at that time said in a New York Times article: "Consumers don't truly believe there's a huge difference between products. It is therefore the purpose of Starbucks to forge 'emotional ties' with people through the Starbucks Experience."

And the public has been buying that 'lifestyle' and experience for years and paying a premium for it. Carrying a Starbucks cup says something about you ... and therein lies the emotional connection. Brilliant! It is that connection that separates Starbucks from all others. Does the coffee really matter? Has it been only the coffee that has sustained this brand for over 30 years? I just don't think it is.

I say that because I am a Starbucks snob. I will pay whatever it costs. I'm one of those people you see in the grocery store on Saturday morning with a cup of Starbucks that I've paid $5 for ... when the grocery store offers free coffee. And I guarantee you, I don't pay more just for the coffee ... although I do love the coffee ... I pay more because of what it says about me ... and the connection I've made with the brand. Other brands don't say the same thing.

So why now run a campaign about the coffee? Perhaps Starbucks is seeing a dip in their sales because in this market place consumers are weighing all options. Perhaps driving through a McDonald's to get a $1.00 jolt of caffeine in three minutes trumps the $5 price tag to carry around the Starbucks cup. When times are tough, people vote with their wallets and price does makes a difference. But only if the emotional connections has not been established.

I don't think Starbucks needs to compete in the arena of the product. One of the reasons Starbucks is a successful brand is because in its formative years it put an emphasis on building emotional ties with its consumer and strengthened that connection by delivering on its promise. It should continue to do that.