Starbucks offers a variety of coffee and coffee products in their retail stores and in grocery stores worldwide. Recently, Starbucks has added value to their retail stores with the expansion of their breakfast and lunch food selection, as well as with the arrival of the Starbucks Blonde Roast Coffee. Through value exploration, the avenue by which a company identifies new opportunities (Kotler & Keller, 2012, p. 58), Starbucks discovered there was a large group of consumers who preferred a milder roast coffee, when compared to the traditional dark roast coffees. In hopes of meeting consumer preference, the Starbucks Blonde Roast was developed and introduced as the newest brewed coffee by Starbucks. It is a “lighter, mellower roast coffee developed to meet the demands of consumers who requested that Starbucks create a lighter-roasted coffee.” According to Smyl & Edelman (2012), Brad Anderson, master roaster for Starbucks, said of Starbucks customers, “They told us they wanted a flavorful, lighter-bodied coffee that offers a milder taste and a gentle finish.
This was important for top managers at Starbucks because instead of just having customers come in and out for a cup of coffee they can also think of Starbucks as a place to relax and meet with friends. In my opinion Starbucks was on the right track by creating this atmosphere as they have gained and retained many customers in this manner and at this time there are not many other cafes that can compare. The image that Starbucks created was employees are treated as partners and customer service is a very important factor. In addition to employee partnership Starbucks created an image of dominating the specialty coffee market. Why have Starbucks’ customer satisfaction scores declined?
In the middle of the circular logo is a cartoon of a 'two tailed siren', which is a unique design - this makes the graphic stand out even more. The logo was in the form of a .gif (graphics interchange format) when I downloaded it from the Starbucks website, since the logo needs to be high quality; it's range of uses span from a small sized coffee cup, to huge store signs. In my opinion, the target audience for this graphic is 18 - 40 year olds, since the whole idea of 'coffee on the go' is something which would appeal to working men/women who need to save time. In addition, the logo is not particularly 'child friendly', since many younger children wouldn't be capable of reading the text - comparing the logo to say the 'McDonalds' logo which is much more simplistic and fun (yellow arches on a red background). Furthermore, I think that the use of thin white stripes close to each other to make up the siren's tail could be problematic when printing the image e.g.
Serving thousands of coffee shops and home consumers across the U.S., Coffee Bean Direct is among the fastest growing coffee companies on the web. Approach When Marketing Associate Floyd Wallace heard the buzz about Google Checkout, he was intrigued for several reasons. Checkout promised reduced credit card transaction fees, Google promotions, the Checkout icon on every Google AdWords™ ad, and easier transactions for customers. Since the beginning, AdWords has been a big component of Coffee Bean Direct’s advertising and marketing strategy; Checkout seemed like a natural complement. “We are always excited to offer convenient choices for our customers,” explains Wallace.
Today, a lot of customers are starting to become more health conscious and now Frito Lays may be lacking in their ‘power sellers’ such as Doritos however they are continuing to enhance Frito Lays sales by buying Sunchips instead. The alternative to the issue would be to create a new flavor to existing products. This could have been done by making Doritos a whole new line instead of creating a different chip with a different title. This would not be as effective because customers already have a sense of what the original product should taste like, and if the new chip wasn’t similar in taste by making it multi-grain the new product flavor would not get the sales it would prefer to see. The case states that they only placed this new product in a small town for a test market.
Customer Relationships: Blue Nile has a high level of customer service and wants to be continuously engaged in every step of the purchase process. They have extensive informational resources on their website that educates their customer. They also have a call center staffed with highly trained personnel to assist customers with anything they need. Blue Nile even has financing services. They also wanted their sales personnel to have their customer in mind when making sales pitches so they avoided the commission based plan so they could avoid creating undue pressure on customers to purchase products with the highest commission.
In this report I am going to discuss the similarities and differences between the marketing techniques between Starbucks coffee and Santander Firstly diversification is important in a business like Starbucks coffee as if a company does not bring out new products the existing customers may lose interest in the business and move to a rival company that is showing interest in to bringing out new products and trying new things, however bringing out lots of different products and possibly forgetting or getting rid of the old products might upset existing customers as they have no reason to shop with you. Starbucks has to bring out new products but keep or work on the existing ones to keep a healthy customer base and hopefully bring in new customers. Santander are slightly different as they are marketing a service they want to offer new customers deals and offers to persuade them to start banking with Santander, but they need to keep their existing customers happy too by offering them deals. Customers stay loyal when they feel like they benefit from using your service or enjoy your products this is why both companies use diversification to show they are active and interested in their customers. Some customers don’t like change and they like to feel comfortable with their products and services, this is where product development is useful as they are used to their usual product or service but it has been improved or changed in some way, for example Starbucks changing their coffees and using different types of beans shows they are interested in keeping the customer and the customer feels important to the business.
A place where they could go to relax and enjoy others, or just be by themselves. - The coffee itself: Starbucks worked directly with growers in various countries of origin to purchase green coffee beans, oversaw the custom-roasting process for the company’s various blends and single-origin coffees, and it controlled distribution to retail stores around the world. - The service: Starbucks created an uplifting experience every time you walk through our door - The atmosphere: Starbucks created the atmosphere with seating ares to encourage lounging and layouts that were designed to provide an upscale yet inviting environment for those who wanted to linger - Channels of distribution: Starbucks stores located in high-traffic, high-visibility settings. Starbucks provided variety of pastries, sodas, and juices, along with coffee-related accessories and equipment, music CDs, games, and seasonal novelty items. It also sold coffee products through non-company-operated retail channels.
• Customized and Seasonal Products: Consumers have the choice of extra whipped cream, caramel syrup, etc. Starbucks also has various seasonal products to serve the customers; this gives them a positive edge over its competitors. • Service at a faster speed: One doesn’t need to wait long times in queue to have a cup of coffee at Starbucks, we can attribute this to the • Convenience through Location: Starbucks' store-site strategy is to have high visibility, high traffic and convenient location, so a daily commuter will be delighted to stop everyday at the store for his cup of cappuccino. The stores’ high visibility, convenience and accessibility in terms of its locations and amenities provided
Within House of Fraser, they also post web-based information on their website, so that their customers can be quickly navigated to find information such as ‘how to contact us’,’ FAQ’s’, and ‘delivery options’. House of Fraser also use multimedia based information such as TV adverts and Magazine adverts in order to inform their customers of new products, sales and special event days, but also to promote their brand as a whole. The purpose of verbally communicating in a meeting between an employee and the employer is essential, as the employee can receive information such as sickness, wages or productivity, in a quick, direct manor. It is also the most professional and polite way to pass on information that is both personal and informative to the employee. The purpose of writing information in a letter in the situation of notifying their customers of new products that are available in-store enables each customer to feel special as well as providing the information in a format that can be referred to, in a professional manor.