During my morning visit to Dunkin Doughnuts, I noticed these two signs pointing to dunkinbeatstarbucks.com. I found the basics about the testing in their press release on the site:
An independent taste test of coffee drinkers across ten major U.S. markets shows a significant majority of participants preferred Dunkin' Donuts coffee over Starbucks.
A&G Research, Inc., under the counsel of claims test advisor Al Ossip, conducted the taste test in May and June in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, and Starbucks' home turf, Seattle. 476 adults, each of whom had consumed regular, hot brewed coffee within the past week, participated in this double-blind taste test. For the test, A&G Research used fresh packaged coffee purchased in each brand's stores, tested each brand's most popular flavor (Dunkin' Donuts Original Blend versus Starbucks House Blend), brewed the coffee using equipment recommended by each brand and served it black.
A&G says that the study results clearly indicate a preference for Dunkin' Donuts:
* Among all participants, 54.2% preferred Dunkin' Donuts coffee, compared to 39.3% who chose Starbucks. 6.3% expressed no preference.
* Of those participants who did have a preference, 58% favored Dunkin' Donuts coffee, versus 42% for Starbucks.
Starbucks will be papering it's locations with a folded one-sheet newspaper called the "Good Sheet," which will "not (b) sending a message that “you should vote this way or that way, not in a way that says you should vote Democratic or Republican, but simply in a way that says get involved, be informed,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of Good."
It will be "a folded piece of newsprint that presents information and statistics in a big graphic. The sheet on health care, for example, gives a history of government health care programs, statistics about health care spending, and suggestions about solutions, including notes on those that John McCain and Barack Obama endorse."
I think Starbucks will suffer greatly for this. Republicans will use Starbucks as a way to differentiate people they disagree with, creating a "Starbucks-type" for it's followers to hate. Their brand will suffer and they will be boycotted in the heartland because these sheets WILL have a liberal bias.
Here's my favorite part:
The Good sheet features one advertiser an issue, which covers the cost of the sheet; Starbucks has not paid Good for the sheets.It's my guess that this is the same business set-up the new Banana Republic Maga-cata-zine-logue has: the store gets the content, the advertiser foots the bill.
Show Notes:
Episode 25, 5-30-08, MP3
1. Why is 7-11 not in the McDonalds/Stabucks/Dunkin race? They offer something the other three do not: make-your-own cup of coffee!
2. If you're going to podcast, do a video podcast then extract the audio and make an audio podcast. Make sure your ads fit both mediums.
Good Video-to-Audio Podcasts:3.Going all the Hannah Montana on yourself.
-Buzz Out Loud
-Cranky Geeks
-Diggnation
Bad Video-to-Audio Podcasts
-DL.tv
Latte and a Quarter Pounder to go please?
by Anonymous Barista
3 hours...to learn again. Focus: The perfect espresso shot, the perfectly steamed pitcher of milk, and "legendary" customer service. It sounds great. It was great. Personal, in-depth, uplifting. Everything Starbucks is and is striving to becomePhoto Credit: Neurosciencemarketing.com
again.
While I think it was a good experience. I don't think it will drastically make changes company wide. There is just to much room for variance.
Ohhh but changes we shall have. In my heart I would like to think that the changes we
see in Bucksland were not in fear of direct competition from the McLatte. In my heart I would like to think that they don't stand a chance against Starbucks, what with our
great atmosphere, great (mostly) partners, and quality beverages we will not see any decline in customers. In my heart I would like to think that Starbucks is and always will be the McChampion.
But...my heart tells me that I think wrong. Subtle changes are being made, and it's not making the news. You will notice. Colors will change. Wages will be challenged. Rumor is MCLatte will be offering a dollar more per hour in my neck of the woods for "previously trained" Baristas.
I think it is a whole new world for Starbucks corporation and no one is really sure what to do about. They are all sitting around a table pondering, what's next? what can we do?
Cheaper, easier to acquire, novel. That is what McLatte has. Starbucks is old news to a lot of people. And when Mr. Triple Venti Vanilla Latte crams his gas guzzling Dodge Ram in for a quick biscuit and finds that the latte is just as good and a dollar and a half cheaper, he's sold. Now, when the kiddies want to play in the fungus slides while chompin' on some nugs, he can sip his latte and surf Men's Health...all without blinking an eye.
Starbucks..bah...it's just that place where the college kids do their homework now. It's gotten dirtier, what with the cut in labor due to less customers. It's not as tempting.
I love my job and hope in the future that I get to keep it. We have excellent customers and excellent partners.
We just need to find a new "excellent" to sell.
A McDonalds in Tempe, Arizona I visited 3-22-08
Do not use photos without written permission. All rights reserved.
I found this post questioning the value of the Starbucks' employee 3-hour mandatory training video viewing session awhile back:
"how many of them knew before the training that the pledge they put their signatures next to has been part of the culture since about the dawn of Starbucks time? Furthermore, how many Starbucks customers have forgotten about this promise over the years?"I also found this gem of a comment on this blog:
"Whatever the relative merits or demerits of the individual loci, the Starbucks habituee will not 'descend' to the perceived downmarket of McD's, which is a brand-association drummed into our consciousness by millions of ad messages over decades. The food may be better, the prices definitively so, at McD's, but the smart set will not cotton to the overbright, plastic-dominated perceived lower-ranking environment of kid-friendly McD's.I have a friend who is a Barista and I want her to (a) read his post and (b) give her thoughts. I am emailing her the link and will post her thoughts if she decides to participate. I think her viewpoint will be interesting.
The escalation of prices for a simple beverage to unheard-of stratospheres is one thing that has, to date, ensured the rarefied perception of Starbuck's as being compatible with the upward-striving status-jumper.
So unless McD's radically alters its branding, the trendoids will find it distasteful to step lively in those swinging doors, even if their coffee tastes more acidic and sets them back more by a factor of twice or thrice the McD's coffee." -Marion Dreyfus
From NME.com:
Starbucks are set to give away 1.5 million free songs every day starting October 2.
The coffee chain has teamed up with iTunes to give away tracks by Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Band Of Horses, amongst others, with the number of songs available set to reach 50 million by November 7.
Customers will get a free 'song of the day' card throughout the promotion which will also feature material from Paul McCartney, John Mayer and Joss Stone.
The chain is also implementing their 'Wi-fi Music Store' service, which will kick off in New York and Seattle, expanding to the rest of Starbucks' shops as the year progresses. The service will enable customers to buy tracks wirelessly from the chain's 'Hear Music' label at the coffee shops.
Starbucks Gossip Blog published a very interesting Starbucks internal email talking about many things, including the lack of "theater" in newer stores, the change from emotional experience to fast foodery and the reminder to put people first. Such an interesting read. I first read the article Saturday in the print edition of the WSJ.
Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz wrote this to CEO Jim Donald earlier this month. The memo's authenticity has been confirmed by Starbucks.
From: Howard Schultz
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 10:39 AM Pacific Standard Time
To: Jim Donald
Cc: Anne Saunders; Dave Pace; Dorothy Kim; Gerry Lopez; Jim Alling; Ken Lombard; Martin Coles; Michael Casey; Michelle Gass; Paula Boggs; Sandra Taylor
Subject: The Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience
As you prepare for the FY 08 strategic planning process, I want to share some of my thoughts with you.
Over the past ten years, in order to achieve the growth, development, and scale necessary to go from less than 1,000 stores to 13,000 stores and beyond, we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have lead to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and, what some might call the commoditization of our brand.
Many of these decisions were probably right at the time, and on their own merit would not have created the dilution of the experience; but in this case, the sum is much greater and, unfortunately, much more damaging than the individual pieces. For example, when we went to automatic espresso machines, we solved a major problem in terms of speed of service and efficiency. At the same time, we overlooked the fact that we would remove much of the romance and theatre that was in play with the use of the La Marzocca machines. This specific decision became even more damaging when the height of the machines, which are now in thousands of stores, blocked the visual sight line the customer previously had to watch the drink being made, and for the intimate experience with the barista. This, coupled with the need for fresh roasted coffee in every North America city and every international market, moved us toward the decision and the need for flavor locked packaging. Again, the right decision at the right time, and once again I believe we overlooked the cause and the affect of flavor lock in our stores. We achieved fresh roasted bagged coffee, but at what cost? The loss of aroma -- perhaps the most powerful non-verbal signal we had in our stores; the loss of our people scooping fresh coffee from the bins and grinding it fresh in front of the customer, and once again stripping the store of tradition and our heritage? Then we moved to store design. Clearly we have had to streamline store design to gain efficiencies of scale and to make sure we had the ROI on sales to investment ratios that would satisfy the financial side of our business. However, one of the results has been stores that no longer have the soul of the past and reflect a chain of stores vs. the warm feeling of a neighborhood store. Some people even call our stores sterile, cookie cutter, no longer reflecting the passion our partners feel about our coffee. In fact, I am not sure people today even know we are roasting coffee. You certainly can't get the message from being in our stores. The merchandise, more art than science, is far removed from being the merchant that I believe we can be and certainly at a minimum should support the foundation of our coffee heritage. Some stores don't have coffee grinders, French presses from Bodum, or even coffee filters.
Now that I have provided you with a list of some of the underlying issues that I believe we need to solve, let me say at the outset that we have all been part of these decisions. I take full responsibility myself, but we desperately need to look into the mirror and realize it's time to get back to the core and make the changes necessary to evoke the heritage, the tradition, and the passion that we all have for the true Starbucks experience. While the current state of affairs for the most part is self induced, that has lead to competitors of all kinds, small and large coffee companies, fast food operators, and mom and pops, to position themselves in a way that creates awareness, trial and loyalty of people who previously have been Starbucks customers. This must be eradicated.
I have said for 20 years that our success is not an entitlement and now it's proving to be a reality. Let's be smarter about how we are spending our time, money and resources. Let's get back to the core. Push for innovation and do the things necessary to once again differentiate Starbucks from all others. We source and buy the highest quality coffee. We have built the most trusted brand in coffee in the world, and we have an enormous responsibility to both the people who have come before us and the 150,000 partners and their families who are relying on our stewardship.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge all that you do for Starbucks. Without your passion and commitment, we would not be where we are today.
Onward…
