Weblog Consulting Register Login Subscribe to Free Influx Emails Join our Facebook Group Branding Street Cred Technology Lifestyle Style Entertainment Interviews Art InfluxTV Map Widgets RSS — All Subjects RSS — More Feeds

Search

Advanced Search

Contact Privacy Policy

Back in March, Starbucks asked their customers for ideas, it created a website and the ideas have been been flooding in, exceeding the expectations of the company.

It makes me thing that every brand should be doing this, why not?

Here are the top 20 ideas that are being considered.

It's a great list that includes new products and experiences, ways to reduce waste and more healthy items.

Option to not print Receipts



Posted by Ed Cotton 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 Great post by Meg Hourihan on her personal Starbucks experience.

"As I stood there in line, taking in the rug, gold gilt mirror, and plush armchairs in one corner, and the mid-range restaurant upholstered booth in the other, I realized what had made this Starbucks different: It had developed the worn familiarity of a local coffeehouse. The few armchairs were shabby, the tables were always haphazardly arranged. The counter was banged up and the doors were chipped wood in need of attention. It was great.

But now it's got that circular Starbucks lighted sign in its window. They've redone the whole counter, changed where you pick up your drink, and installed a microwave so they can sell those wretched breakfast sandwiches. It's now just another Manhattan Starbucks. Everything that gave it its own identity and authenticity is now gone, and I haven't been back.

Ever since I've been thinking about if it's even possible to have an authentic experience at a chain. In order for the chain to succeed, it needs consistency both in product and in branding. This one, until recently, offered the consistent chain product. But the branding, at least in terms of store interior, was missing. Now that it's been restored, the spirit of the place is gone. I know consistency trumps authenticity when it comes to chains. It was foolish of me to develop feelings for that Starbucks because it seemed different than the others. Different can't survive when global sameness is the goal."

Lots of food for thought here that gives rise to the notion of "un-chaining".

How can brands remove the shackles of globally ubiquity and modulate experiences to match the needs of specific local target segments?


Posted by Ed Cotton influx interview- tim haab- ohio state university-why the price of your morning starbucks went up (40.01236487583938 , -83.03329467773438) I’ve written quite a few posts about the paradox of ethanol; the idea that it appears a seemingly powerful alternative fuel, but one that comes with significant knock-on impacts to the global food supply.

However, I am no expert, so I decided to track one down for an interview to learn more.

Tim Haab is an environmental economist at Ohio State University who's been spending a lot of time digging into the ethanol issue and came up with the term “Ethanol Dominos” to describe the trickle down effects of ethanol policy on food markets.

Tim also runs a website Environmental Economics where he explains the economics of environmental issues.

1. Briefly describe what you do?

I am an environmental economist at Ohio State University. That means I apply  economic reasoning and models to environmental issues.  Much of my work focuses on the valuation (placing dollar values) of environmental good and services when markets fail to do so.  But I also have interests in the analysis of government policies that impact the environment.

One of my professional goals is to help non-economists understand how economists think about environmental issues.  To that end, we (John Whitehead and myself) started a web-site call Environmental Economics where we attempt to use our limited expertise and even more limited senses of humor to explain the economics of environmental issues to non-economists.

2. What has been the catalyst for the increased interest in ethanol,  when exactly was the inflection point?

In my view, much of the catalyst has been the increased attention climate change has received lately coupled with a strong farm lobby in the U.S.  Increased attention on climate change immediately focuses attention on energy consumption and particularly fossil fuels.  As fossil fuel prices rise in response to political situations and natural scarcity, two things are expected to occur: 1) increased conservation of fossil fuels--decreased consumption due to higher prices and 2) increased investment in alternative energy sources.

Fossil fuels are used extensively because they are inexpensive and the infrastructure is in place.  Economic models show us that the natural course of reaction to higher fossil fuel prices would be to turn to the next cheapest alternative.  Unfortunately, things aren't always quite that simple.  It's not always easy to identify what that next alternative will be.  Some think it will be wind energy, some thing it will be hydrogen, some think it will be nuclear, but many think ethanol is the next step.  That seems to be where U.S. policy makers stand.

3. What's happening in US agriculture to try and meet the demand. How radical is this transformation?

Interesting question, for which we don't yet have all of the data to fully answer it.  So for now we rely on anecdotal evidence that transformations are taking place. Since, in the U.S., almost all ethanol is corn based ethanol, as the demand for ethanol increases, the demand for corn increases.  As the demand for any product increase, it's price rises.  So the immediate impact of an increase in the demand for corn is an increase in corn prices.  Over a number of growing seasons, we would expect to see these higher corn prices result in increased plantings of corn as opposed to other land intensive crops (particularly soy and other grains).  The resulting decreased supply in soy and grain would result in higher soy and grain prices.

How radical of a transformation takes place depends on how much emphasis is placed on ethanol by consumers and on the levels of subsidies for ethanol production in future U.S. energy and farm bills.

4. What are Ethanol Dominos?

As I started to describe above, Ethanol Dominoes are the trickle down effects that ethanol policy creates through food and energy markets.   Many times, policies are designed to directly affect a particular market and either through willful ignorance or intentional planning the effects on other markets are ignored.  Unfortunately, individual markets in market-based economies don't work in isolation.

So in the ethanol case, a U.S. policy requiring 15% ethanol production can have dramatic effects downstream.  Over the past year we have seen corn prices double (to roughly $4 a bushel).  The increased demand for corn to meet government mandated ethanol goals will raise the price of everything produced from corn.  Following one chain of dominoes we might see that increased corn prices increase the cost of feeding cattle (who eat corn) which increases the cost of milk production which increases the price of milk (which is now as high as $4 per gallon in many places) which increases the cost of milk related products like ice cream and dairy creamers.  To whit, Starbucks recently announced an across the board increase in coffee drinks requiring milk products due to increased milk prices.  In addition to other factors, that price increase can be traced back to bad ethanol policy.

While increased Starbucks prices may seem like a superficial concern when compared with the environmental and national security concerns from fossil fuel consumption, increased corn prices can have other dramatic effects if we follow other domino chains.  Increased demand for corn will raise corn prices, which raises the price of producing corn related products such as corn tortillas.  Rural Mexicans rely on corn tortillas as their primary source of protein (as much as 40% of their protein comes from tortillas).  The U.S. emphasis on corn-based ethanol has driven tortilla prices up to the point that a poor family of four has trouble purchasing a day's worth of tortillas on a day's wages.    So what is the reaction of the Mexican government?  Consideration of a price cap on corn.  A bad reactionary policy to counteract the effects of U.S. ethanol policy.

5. Is the era of cheap food now officially over?

I'd like to think that I had official power to make that call, but frankly I don't know.  Food in the U.S. is cheap and it's one of the reasons that the government can get away with energy and farm policies that are economically inefficient but politically palatable.  The end result to the U.S. consumer of ethanol policy might be a minimal increase in overall grocery bills.  While the effect is minimal for each household, if we add up the total costs to society, the effects can be substantial.  But as long as the cost to the household is small, there won't be a groundswell of opposition to inefficient policies.



Posted by Ed Cotton