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Ad agencies and brand consultants will tell their clients about the value of being single-minded and focused.

In a saturated and complex world, being focused is always better. It’s just easier to communicate one idea, rather than several.  

The problem with focus is it limits business. The finance folks and the people responsible for growth don't want focus; in fact, they despise it because it means narrowing opportunity. They will come back to you saying they don't just want to target women, they believe their target is everyone who owns a television. You see it all the time with cable networks that start off with a very focused mission, like weather and end up three years later showing horror movies and rare European documentaries.

This now appears to be the case with Dunkin Donuts.

At a time when their major competitor Starbucks appears to be down on their luck, Dunkin is doing the unthinkable, instead of focusing, it's turning itself into a casual restaurant.

According to AP.

"Dunkin' Donuts, the coffee and baked goods chain synonymous with breakfast, is targeting the afternoon and evening crowds with new flatbread sandwiches and personal pizzas heated in convection ovens rather than microwaves.

The chain hopes the moves, to be announced Wednesday, will improve food quality and bolster an expansion plan that's introducing Dunkin's pink and orange-themed restaurants far beyond the brand's Northeastern base.

Although Dunkin' has previously experimented with sandwiches, the 57-year-old chain is billing what it calls its "all-day, oven-toasted menu" as its biggest change since its launch of espresso drinks in 2003."

Here's a brand that made a radical move in 03 by introducing espresso drinks, that's now turning itself into a combination of Quizno's and Pizza Hut.

While the brand clearly wants to extend its opportunity across the day-part, the problem is that in most cases, consumers can only recognize and remember a brand for one thing.

Dunkin should just take a look at the difficulties Starbucks has had moving into other areas beyond coffee. Its latest strategy is to do away with some of their breakfast offering all together. On January 30th, Howard Schultz told analysts that warm sandwiches will be out by year's end because serving sandwiches got in the way of employees ability to make the perfect shot of espresso

The problem for ad agencies and brand consultants is they find it hard to argue for focus because the business guys have all the numbers that show incremental growth to revenue.

It’s hard to present data on future brand health to clients because it doesn’t exist, but perhaps we should be working together with our research partners to develop some new ways to discover and present that.



Posted by Ed Cotton Ray Kroc would never have dreamed that McDonald's would go into combat in a war over coffee, the fact it's doing so is a testament to the work of Howard Schultz and Starbucks.

The elevation of the coffee experience in America has been done by Starbucks and now the fast food guys want a share of the lucrative pie.

Clealry, McDonald's is striking from a position of strength and Starbucks is at one of its weakest points.

Purists could argue that McDonald's developed the third place concept first by providing an alternate destination to home for families, but then failed to build on the concept and make it relevant to different audiences, which allowed Starbucks to seize that territory.

In the end, this is all about a consumer win and the need for brands to meet consumer needs to remain relevant.

McDonald's realized four years ago, quite correctly, that the old brand experience was not sufficient to compete in today's marketplace and the upgrade which started with the menu by adding salads and new items, has now been expanded to include improvements to the facilities and the decision to take coffee seriously.

If consumers have been trained by Starbucks to expect a better cup of coffee, there's no reason McDonald's should't give it to them.

There are a couple of critical questions here.

1. Can McDonald's make a decent cup of coffee?

2. Will consumers trust McDonald's to make good coffee?

3. Do consumers want to be drinking a decent cup of coffee in McDonald's?

4. What can Starbucks do marketing wise to "own" coffee?

5. What can Starbucks do to show the superiority of their experience?

Yesterday, Starbucks announced the return of Schultz with the goal of bringing the service obsession back to the brand. The board clearly looked at the sales data and re-read Schultz's memo from last year and decided enough was enough.

The blue touch paper has been lit and Starbucks once shy of advertising will now get on with selling its pitch, it will be interesting to see how McDonald's responds, but it's likely to be with some shock and awe, that's the way they like to do things in Oak Brook.

In the end, McDonald's can crush Starbucks with its marketing spend, but the real test will be on the fronline and this is all about Schultz, if he can bring the magic back to Starbucks and add some creative new touches, McDonald's will take some share, but not much, if he can't, the losses might be considerable.


Posted by Ed Cotton Slate has a good story, although we've heard it before, about Starbucks and the independent coffee store.

Contrary to popular imagination, Starbucks has helped grow the coffee house business for everyone.

The article states:

"According to recent figures from the Specialty Coffee Association of America, 57 percent of the nation's coffeehouses are still mom and pops. Just over the five-year period from 2000 to 2005—long after Starbucks supposedly obliterated indie cafes—the number of mom and pops grew 40 percent, from 9,800 to nearly 14,000 coffeehouses. (Starbucks, I might add, tripled in size over that same time period. Good times all around.)"

The rise of Starbucks has helped others to develop unique and interesting businesses.

In addition, some great new technology has come to the aid of this small coffee houses in the form of Clover.



Of course, The Economist got to this story first, but here's how the company describes its machine:

"Everyone from the grower to the roaster has worked hard to do right by these beans. Now it's your turn to make them shine. Clover 1s™ gives you the power to brew each cup to order according to each coffee's unique characteristics, in a fraction of the time of other single-cup brewing methods. Bring out the subtle nuances of all of your coffees through complete, independent control of all of the important brew parameters: grind size, dose, water temperature, and contact time.

Would you let a latte sit for 20 minutes?

Didn't think so. So why serve anything less than fresh-brewed coffee? With the Clover, every cup is a hand-crafted, fresh cup. Your customers can now choose any beans on your coffee menu, watch and smell their own coffee brew, discuss the cup with their barista, and enjoy the experience like never before.

It's 7:05 AM. Do you know what your customers are drinking?

Know with CloverNet™, a service that gives you web access to your Clovers. Find out what's brewing on each of your Clovers right now, and visualize business trends through real-time charting. CloverNet also makes it easy to update brew parameters for all of your coffees, and to keep your Clovers in peak operation through system monitoring. Ask your roaster's sales representative about adding CloverNet to your new and existing Clovers. (No rep? Then contact us.) It's your business; you should know.

It's a nice piece of kit; that brews individual cups tailored to the beans and it's even a networked appliance that allows owners to monitor performance in real time. The secret here is the tailoring of the brewing to the bean that creates a noticeable improvement in quality.

In a world that increasingly values personalization, authenticity and quality, Clover is a machine that takes coffee to a new level.

One of the places to benefit from Clover equipment is Ritual, located in the Mission district of San Francisco. Founded by Eileen Hassi. Hassi is an ex-Starbucks employee who's passionate about coffee quality and roasts coffee on site.

Ritual is Starbucks 2.0, a laid-back environment where gross commercialization and the commodization take a back seat to the DIY feeling, ethics and individuality.

Here's what the store is like:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Via Peter Klein and thanks to Alex Frankel for introducing me to Eileen.


Posted by Ed Cotton