How A Marketer Would Course Correct Starbucks

I personally love Starbucks and can’t imagine a world without it. So I was enormously surprised to see the brand fumble in recent months, with poor quarterly performance leading to dramatic lay-off’s and the implementation of CEO Brian Niccol’s ‘Back to Starbucks’ plan.

The more I thought about it, the more it started to seem not inconceivable that Starbucks could actually be in serious trouble. Because they’re in an impossible position: Starbucks is a great company in summation of qualities but not in any individual area of business. Said a different way, no other coffeeshop can compete with Starbucks in totality but Starbucks can’t compete with any other coffeeshop in a specific area of competitive advantage.

Starbucks delivers a high-quality, accurate, and timely experience most of the time. And they’re very good at creating a brand dynamic that feels authentic across various settings; a Starbucks always feels like a Starbucks, whether it’s in an airport, a Target superstore, or a physical Starbucks location in any city in the world. But in terms of individual competitive advantages there is nothing that Starbucks does exceptionally well beyond being Starbucks. Compare this to McDonald’s, which is in many ways a comparable business: global scale, vivid branding, iconic product, etc. Well, you could easily open a cheap burger joint down the street from a McDonald’s…but you’re going to have a hard time competing with them. But on the other hand, there’s MANY ways you could open a coffeeshop that competes with a Starbucks.

This puts Starbucks in a challenging position. A small company that seeks to do one thing really well can surpass Starbucks in that single area, which is a big deal in the coffee business. For example, the hip coffeeshop in your area might make it their entire mission to offer extremely high-quality, artisanal coffee with only the highest quality beans and the best trained baristas. Starbucks can’t do that. They can come close, but they can’t go all the way.

When you break it down, Starbucks loses in almost every category:

So, that got me thinking. What would I do if I was in Brian Niccol’s shoes? How would I go about course correcting Starbucks? Which, despite everything I’ve said, remains a brand I genuinely love.

Encourage Long Visits from Remote Workers

I think Starbucks as a brand knows they seriously missed the mark with the layout designs across the current crop of locations, compromising seating and interior space for a slimmer profile. But even before that, the trend was seemingly intentionally unfriendly design: the tables were never the right size, the chairs became uncomfortable after 20 minutes. Customers were actively pushed out the door. It appears correcting this misstep is an early priority for the brand but I’d take a step further.

I’d make Starbucks a great place to work. Make the larger locations friendly to digital nomads, WFH’ers, or traveling businesspeople. I’m even envisioning small meeting areas or private booths that customers can reserve in advance for calls and virtual meetings. It’s a total flip on the strategy that you don’t want people lingering in Starbucks all day and making it their personal office — but I think it could be implemented profitably, especially if these people buy add-on services (like cheap rentals of co-working booths) or stay for lunch.

Nostalgia As A Product

Starbucks could also seek to become a nostalgic company that leans into the culture of the Pacific Northwest and a fantasy of Seattle in the 1990’s. Starbucks as a brand predates the era by several decades but I think this specific memory is the most powerful place to drop “anchor.” The experience of going to Starbucks would become a visit into what people increasingly think of as a golden age.

So when you go into a Starbucks potentially, it’s like stepping back in time. You have vintage styles, vintage fixtures. I’m even envisioning old books, vinyl records, almost like an alt-culture, grunge-influenced experience that restores the ambience that we once associated around coffee shops. The energy should simultaneously feel intellectually sophisticated and cool, yet also very comfortable and emotionally safe. The customer should feel wrapped in nostalgia and distanced from their anxieties about the world…and about spending money.

You go when you’re stressed, you go with your friends, and you have this sense of being back in the Nineties and returning to when your life seemed more simple and happier. Older customers will feel like they’ve returned to the Starbuck’s of their memories while Gen Z/Alpha audiences will be attracted to the opportunity to taste an era they feel loss over never having gotten to enjoy.

This might seem like a silly idea or a gimmick that won’t work in the long-run. Maybe. But revisiting my original point, that there are very few single things competitors can’t do better, the nostalgic approach actually solidifies and commoditizes a brand asset currently unused by the corporation. Starbucks is the world’s ONLY big chain with a legitimate claim to this time and place. Only Starbucks could pull this strategy off. It’s theirs to take or leave.

Enthusiastically Embrace (Apolitical) Globalism

Starbucks has a vague, inoffensive global feel and there’s intentional earthiness in the brand’s presentation at every level. Using artwork, colors, lighting, and sound, Starbucks seeks to come across as natural and connected to the human experience in a very benign and pleasant way. It’s one of the few big corporations that strive to create such an atmosphere and I think this is an absolutely genius and radically underappreciated dimension to the overall brand strategy. And unfortunately, one they’ve moved away from: Starbucks, like most companies, now strives to become a mirror to the individual consumer, a reflection of their personal identity and lifestyle.

Of course, we are now several years into a conservative decade. Nationalism and patriotism is on the rise, not just in the United States but across many of the countries in which Starbucks operates. In a sense, globalism has become a dirty word; mainstream perception now broadly associates globalism with exploitation of labor and the manipulation of populations by powerful elites. Culturally, we’ve moved very far from the One Race, One Planet positivity of the 2000’s. The obvious impulse for Starbucks must be to play it safe and downplay their signature worldwide aesthetic until it’s back in fashion.

I think the exact opposite. The current climate creates a huge opening for Starbucks. Absolutely, there is an undeniable patriotic mood as energized citizens of the United States, Canada, and other countries seek to reclaim a sense of local control. But that doesn’t change the underlying human need, that powerful human desire, for global connectedness, which is completely underserved at this moment exactly because globalism has become so villainized.

I’m sure Starbucks today has reservations about presenting themselves as a globally connected brand. But if there’s one thing Starbucks should double down on, it’s this. It’s one of the very few areas where Starbucks can excel. Your local coffee shop does not have any kind of a global connection. Your Keurig machine certainly doesn’t. Starbucks does.

I would see Starbucks integrating into the customer experience a sense of connectedness with people around the world. Maybe there are international phrases printed on the side of your coffee cup, words used by the farmers who crafted the beans. Maybe Starbucks creates a rewards program where random lucky customers can book flights to travel to global destinations — which of course doubles as authentic marketing materials; imagine pictures on the wall of real-life customers exploring the beaches of Papua New Guinea or the mountains of Indonesia. With Starbucks, you don’t just get a cup of coffee: you’re brought closer to this beautiful planet of ours, with all its splendor and beauty and diversity.

There are countless other ways this kind of strategy could be implemented. Maybe featured menu items that are popular in other countries but not otherwise available in your market. Maybe each Starbucks location has a global sister store, and the employees have a pen-pal system. Global music artists could be included in the store playlist rotation. These are just ideas. My point overall is that in this time where people are narrowing their perspectives inward, Starbucks has a tremendous opportunity to commoditize the global human experience.

What’s next?

Brian Niccol’s ‘Back to Starbucks’ plan is still in the early days of implementation. I can’t freakin’ imagine how not easy it must be to roll out change across a monolithic corporation. Whatever strategies Starbucks end up going with, I truly wish the brand well. I’m a loyal customer: I’ll be paying attention to what happens in my local stores, and keep on sipping this beautiful black Casi Cielo.