“I would be devastated, if twenty years from now, Starbucks achieves the penetration, the presence, and the recognition that we aim for at the expense of our core values. If we lose our sensitivity and our responsibility, if we start thinking it’s acceptable to leave people behind in our climb to the top, I will somehow feel that we failed.”

Howard Schultz | “Pour Your Heart Into It” (1997)

“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.”

Howard Schultz | Internal memo (Feb. 14, 2007)

While “devastated” might be too strong a word, it’s clear Howard Schultz, Starbucks Coffee chairman and chief visionary, regrets decisions his company has made for the sake of growth.

Howard feels the romance and theatre of coffee have disappeared from Starbucks stores because Baristas now use push-button machines to make espresso drinks. That stores no longer smell like coffee. That stores have an uninspiring and cookie-cutter design aesthetic. That customers no longer understand, nor appreciate the passion, skill, and dedication Starbucks takes in sourcing and roasting coffee. That Starbucks stores “…no longer have the soul of the past and reflect a chain of stores vs. the warm feeling of a neighborhood store.”

Howard closes the email by asking his executive team to get smarter about the business and to get more innovative to once again differentiate Starbucks. He explicitly challenges his executive team to guide Starbucks back to its core roots of being a coffee company.

So…how can Starbucks become the coffee company it once was? How can Starbucks reclaim its uniqueness? How can Starbucks make more personal connections with customers?

What must Starbucks do?

That’s the question I asked on the Brand Autopsy blog. And you, the Starbucks Board of Customers, provided the answers. ...

Download What Must Starbucks Do?

PDF format, 886KB, 36Pages.

About the Author:

For the past decade, John Moore has made his mark in the marketing world by creating, championing, and implementing marketing ideas and branding ideals for Whole Foods Market and Starbucks Coffee. As the Director of National Marketing for Whole Foods Market, John focused his team on engaging in activities which were less about using traditional advertising and more about using the influential power of customers as the advertising vehicle.

At Starbucks, John led countless highly successful in-store and out-of-store marketing promotions as a Retail Marketing Manager. Today, through speaking engagements and through his Brand Autopsy Marketing Practice, John shares business and marketing advice with companies aspiring to become the next Whole Foods or Starbucks.

He has been recognized by Fast Company magazine as a “leading practitioner of the arts of customer service and marketing” and serves as a Standards Council Advisory Board Member with the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. John is also the author of the Brand Autopsy blog and the author of Tribal Knowledge, a business management book from Kaplan Publishing.

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About Starbucks:

Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX; SEHK: 4337) is a coffeehouse chain based in the United States. Named after the first mate in the novel Moby-Dick, Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 7,521 company-owned and 5,647 licensed stores in 40 countries, making a total of 13,168 stores worldwide.

Starbucks serves drip brewed coffee, espresso-based hot drinks, other hot and cold drinks, snacks and items such as mugs and coffee beans. Through its Starbucks Entertainment division and Hear Music brand, the company has ventured beyond refreshments into books, music, and film. Many of these products are seasonal or specific to the locality of the store. Starbucks brand ice cream and coffee are also sold at grocery stores.

From its founding in Seattle, Washington, as a local coffee bean roaster and retailer, Starbucks has expanded rapidly. In the 1990s, the company was opening a new store every workday, a pace that continued into the 2000s. Domestic growth has since slowed down, though the company continues to expand in foreign markets and is opening 7 stores a day worldwide. The first international location outside of the U.S. and Canada was established in 1996, and they now constitute almost one third of Starbucks' stores.

As of February 2007, Starbucks had 7,521 company-owned outlets worldwide: 6,010 of them in the United States and 1,511 in other countries and U.S. territories. In addition, the company has 5,647 joint-venture and licensed outlets, 3,391 of them in the United States and 2,256 in other countries and U.S. territories. This brings the total locations (as of February 2007) to 13,168 worldwide. Starbucks can be found in many popular grocery chains in the U.S. and Canada, as well as in many airports.

Starbucks' corporate headquarters are in Seattle, Washington, United States. As of March 2007, the members of the company's board of directors are Howard Schultz (Chair), Jim Donald, Barbara Bass, Howard Behar, Bill Bradley, Mellody Hobson, Olden Lee, James Shennan, Jr., Javier Teruel, Myron Ullman, III, and Craig Weatherup.

Products

Starbucks serves a variety of beverages including brewed coffee, espresso, teas, and Frappuccinos. Also available are bottled beverages including Odwallas, Ethos water, San Pellegrinos, Izze soda, and Horizon Organic Milk.

Starbucks has a 'you-call-it' culture allowing the customer to specify all modifications to the drink. For example instead of just ordering a Caffe Mocha, customers can order an iced decaf triple grande five pump soy no whip Mocha. Any beverage can have various flavored syrups and whipped cream can be added. Cappuccinos can be made with more foam ("dry") or less foam ("wet").

Starbucks also offers blended beverages such as its trademark "Frappuccino Blended Coffee", a flavored drink of coffee, milk and sugar blended with ice. The name is a portmanteau of “frappé” and “cappuccino,” and was introduced in 1995. Along with Coffee Frappuccino base, Starbucks has a Crème base to make popular beverages such as Strawberries and Crème Frappuccino or a Double Chocolate Chip Crème Frappuccino.

Starbucks supplements these offerings with pastries, salads, cold sandwiches, juices, and bottled water as well as coffee merchandise and at-home brewing equipment, bagged or scooped coffee beans, and (in some regions) preassembled hot breakfast muffin sandwiches.

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