I understand Midnight hates Starbucks. I really do. I’ve seen him hate them. It’s not pretty but like a road accident, you can’t turn away and move on. And then the police arrive and the police report reads….
Hating Starbucks.
Is it because of it’s ‘cookie cutter’ business approach? It’s street-wide world-wide coverage? Perhaps the considered sameness of the menu offering or perhaps the instantly recognizable brand profiling and outlet design? Is it the forced cheerfulness of the counter staff or the at times questionable corporate machinations that drive it?
Perhaps I’m just projecting.
Maybe you just prefer an alternative option – like a Gloria Jeans, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf or perhaps Zaffaras…
I’m guessing you also probably hate MacDonald’s for similar sorts of reasons. I understand, I really do… and yet.
For the very reasons that these sorts of businesses are kinda annoying, it’s their assured sameness that is so popular. I mean isn’t that why we also use the same branded toothpaste everyday, read the same newspapers or watch the same regular TV shows? That’s why I liked the Love Boat and the Dave Letterman Show – assured sameness.
I must confess that when pushed for time and a lack of imagination (or perhaps alternative ready on-hand options) I like the fact that I can frequent a Starbucks, or a MacDonald’s, and get a product/service with no surprises. And to be frank, when traveling through North America the access to relatively clean toilets is a bonus, and when in Asia, sometimes one really does need to plug into this western sameness just to remain a little grounded.
Starbucks and MacDonald’s – is it a service dilemma? Perhaps it goes back to your post regarding Pizza with the lot and the endless ‘innovations’ made to pizza, the humble toothbrush, and razor blades. Keeping ‘it’ the same and keeping it simple is sometimes ok just as it is in return for an uncluttered and peaceful life.
And for those days you feel like breaking out and living on the proverbial edge, well just add a dramatic caramel swirl across the Grande Latte or heck, go for it and upsize those chips. I mean their vegetables right? That’s gotta be good.
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And the final word from the Murray @ Midnight media clipping service - a very interesting take from the LA Times on Starbuck’s expansion and the recent ‘recoil’ effect it has had on their customers.
The article can be found at:
Starbuck’s venti problem
I particularly liked the astute observation that as a business expands at breakneck speed it
inevitably leads companies to engineer the individuality gene out of the company’s DNA.
followed by the observation that -
the need to build so many outlets at once has resulted in “stores that no longer have the soul of the past and reflect a chain of stores vs. the warm feeling of a neighborhood store.” In other words, in order to turn into a Fortune 500 company, Starbucks had to start thinking and acting like one. And nothing saps the essence out of a creative, quirky brand faster than a bunch of senior vice presidents at a Fortune 500 company.
Maybe that’s why folks like Midnight ‘hate’ Starbucks… now.
and the final word from the LA Times.
The overriding imperative of American business is to give customers what they want, whenever and wherever they want it. That’s precisely what Starbucks has done in recent years. And that’s precisely what is causing the barista-in-chief so much angst.
Nice link Midnight.
…and on that note, the uttering of the Holy Grape concludes till next time.
Plus human beings are creatures of habit. They like to retreat into the comfort zones of familiarity as you say in order to help relieve the stress in other areas of their lives.
Companies like Starbucks and MacDonald’s don’t claim to present customers with the most nutritious, cost-effective, calorie-effective product, it’s not what they do, they strive to giving people an international familiarity and sense of safety wherever they may travel. For all our lauded sense of adventure we really are terribly ’safe’ creatures most of the time.
well put as always Creature - we are indeed safe-seeking creatures.
And these major international companies recognize this as they go about addressing, overtly and or discreetly, our most base needs. Yet another commercial nod to Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy if you will.
They provide for their customers physiological need for food and drink, to provide a sanctuary - a safe place to ‘escape’, to provide a sense of belonging – a branded community, and of course through service a sense of being individually valued.
“Coffee for Saturday, a ‘unique’ coffee made specifically and only for Mr. Saturday.” “Thank you ma’am, it is I, Mr. Saturday”
I guess the point of Midnight’s comment and that of the LA Times article is that where they are falling down on these days is that as each company grows bigger, and their customers become more sophisticated, they are struggling to address the highest needs set - self-actualization. Simply put – the bigger they get the less individual the experience becomes.
And let’s face it – at some deep level we want more than ‘just’ coffee or we wouldn’t pay the outrageous prices they set. For $4 bucks - personally I expect dang hot ‘Saturday-Special’ coffee and all my many needs to be well met…. and make it snappy… please.
The dilemna that many of these places face is that they came to prominence on a wave of “trendiness” that helped pull a lot of people into the chill, hip, “in” crowd. They gained their reputation for being “the” place to be and now alas many of the people they drew are starting to outgrow them. They realise this and that’s why they are trying to change. It won’t work and they shouldn’t try.
Long gone are the days of Nescafe instant roast. We’ve become more discerning in our tastes, something Starbucks, Gloria Jeans, Koffee Klub, Aroma’s et al are responsible for. They created this monster, and now it’s becoming their downfall. MacDonald’s too has tried to change, witness the salads and the healthy breakfast options, but c’mon they sell burgers and that’s what we want, two whole beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles on a sesame seed bun. That scene in Pulp Fiction where Samuel Jackson and John Travolta discuss the “Royale with Cheese” is to me indicative of these companies trying to make themselves seem up-market.
It’s like a labourer winning lotto, moving into a million dollar mansion and driving a Bentley. They might be rich but he’s still a labourer.
I was literally excited when Starbucks opened its first store in Queensland.
It was located down on the Gold Coast, and on its grand opening weekend I went on a 3 hour round trip to buy myself a Starbucks coffee.
I can’t remember, anymore, why I felt it was necessary to do this; beyond, perhaps, a vague idea I had at the time that Starbucks was the cafe culture rendered on a vast - nay, global! - scale, and that if anyone could make a great coffee, it had to be them. Also, let’s face it, I was an excitable kind of guy.
So, after an hour-and-a-half of driving, there I sat in a packed Starbucks store, sipping at what amounted to a very expensive cup of hot, dirty water, and staring at all the other people who appeared a little uncertain as to why they had been so excited about a Starbucks opening in Queensland. We were kindred spirits, we people sitting in that Starbucks on that grand opening weekend. I think we all felt a little foolish, and I think we had all hoped that the day Starbucks came to town (or, as in this case, a town more than an hour’s drive away) would mean something more than it did.
Unfortunately - at least as far as my tastebuds are concerned - Starbucks makes a pretty disappointing cup of coffee; and now, just a few years later, they’re opening up stores all over the landscape of Brisbane and pushing the little boutique cafes and coffee shops out of business.
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Of course, when you get down to it, McDonalds is as guilty of selling a crap product as Starbucks. However, we know we’re not pulling into a McDonalds because we’re expecting a gourmet burger - or even a reasonably good burger, for that matter. No, we’re pulling the family road-train up to those golden arches for two far more important reasons: familiarity and convenience. We don’t want the best burger in the world by that point. What we want is to give the screaming kids in the back something that will shut them up so the blinding red headache we’ve had since we went through Ballina will go away, if even only just for a little while.
Perhaps I’m being a little too cynical about McDonalds. Although, come to think of it, I wish I could remember whoever it was that shared the story with me recently about how smart Little Johnny was because he could recognise the McDonalds logo before he could speak. That story taught me new respect for the power of brand recognition, even in toddlers. And, er, that’s not to say that Little Johnny - whoever he was - wasn’t a gifted genius at age 1½… Yes.
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I suspect that maybe 20 or 30 years ago we would have been reading articles about how McDonalds had grown too large, too fast. I think that’s the kind of thing you write about large companies at some point in their growth arc, particularly ones that rely on a bricks-and-mortar, person-on-person commercial interactions.
And yet, McDonalds hasn’t gone away - and unless there’s been some serious mismanagement at a very high level in the Starbucks corporate structure, I doubt it will disappear either.
It’s interesting, though, to see a huge company like Starbucks pause to take a look at itself like this. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe, at the end of the day, it’s just a thing.
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I have some advice for Starbucks - and for any other global company that happens to be paying attention.
The brand isn’t more important than the experience.
And when you take the individual out of the customer experience equation, you stand a very good chance of taking the individual out of your business entirely.
I went to the aforementioned burger joint of ill-repute last night, and I am not ashamed to admit it. It was late, after 8.30pm, beyond the time that even I would stand in the kitchen for an hour cooking dinner, but that was just the problem. We had a gas leak so our entire system was ‘red tagged’ meaning we could be fined for using it. Nice.
So there we were watching the AmeriGas ‘technician’ (you know the one with half his arse pearing out from over the top of his oversized jeans) discussing what we were going to do for food over the weekend considering we were now probably not going to be able to get our gas ‘green tagged’ before Monday.
MacDonald’s. Yep. The sheer convenience, the knowledge that we knew what we were getting, and the price. All the factors we have discussed here. We didn’t want haute cuisine. We didn’t want 1000 calories or less. We didn’t want less than 6g of fat. We didn’t want it to take forever. We were comforted by our decision, and when we arrived there were dozens of other people who were comforted by their decision to visit MacDonald’s as well. Who knows perhaps their gas had been ‘red tagged’ that evening as well.
So it got me thinking about all of the other things in our lives like MacDonald’s and Starbucks and we could say the same about almost anything we enjoy the familiarity of. It doesn’t have to be a pariahed (Murray @ Midnight is that a word in your Dictionary?) fast food joint. Perhaps they are just an easy mark for people who want to be seen to be making a stand against rampant consumerism, but secretly enjoy their products.
To claim that Starbucks is perhaps losing the plot with regard to the customer experience, is perhaps true, but in other aspects they are trying to bring it back. We have a drive-thru Starbucks near us. Is fast food giving way to fast coffee? The whole irony is that coffee shops were founded as places to relax, sit, talk, discuss the day’s events before returning to your family and your dreary life. Is the Starbuck’s surge toward convenience now destroying its own relevance, and the foundation upon which it was built?
I think Murray @ Midnight’s final statement says it all. Caveat Venditor and all that, for the consumer is fickle and not something or someone to be toyed with.
Had to share this snippet on Starbucks attempt at becoming more hip.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03112007/business/let_it_bean_business_peter_lauria.htm
I hear MacDonald’s are starting a male revue to try and attract more soccer moms. OK it was a joke, but no meat references please.