A few weeks back, Starbucks launched their new Pike Place Roast coffee. They advertise it as “Smooth and Bold, made every 30 minutes, all day, every day, just for you“.
Here in Seattle, the Starbucks center of the universe, they’ve been promoting it very heavily. Without coming out and saying it, it seems pretty clear to me that it’s tied to recent pressure by McDonalds and their McCafe initiative. Starbucks seems to be trying to make a coffee that will appeal to the everyday Joe. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is their core audience. Starbucks is the Nordstroms of the coffee industry and this shift to a ’smoother’ blend to me seems that they are unwittingly becoming the Old Navy of the industry.
I’m not a huge fan on Starbucks to start with, but I tried their Pike Place Roast to see what all their hype was about. It tasted very mild to me, suspiciously like the Folgers my parents drink at home and the McDonalds brew they drink when they are on the road.
Seems that Starbucks has a bit of an identity crisis right now. McDonalds is going to continue to pressure the low-end coffee market. If Starbucks goes down that road, its going to be a losing battle. They should focus on strong, specialized coffee. If customers were complaining about a lack of consistency in their daily brews (they used to rotate blends each day), then Starbucks should maintain half a dozen blends, fresh all day and available in every store.
Give the customer a premium experience Starbucks, they’re certainly willing to pay a premium price.
on Apr 21st, 2008 at 12:04 am
dude i am so with you on this. i was just telling my wife today how i think they are blowing it. i always looked forward to a different blend every time i went in there. if i wanted the same s**t different day, i would go to mcdingdongs or dunkin dodos. so their stocks are down -does that mean they are going to start closing stores? yeah right. chill out.