I happen to like Starbucks’ new, more mellow “everyday” coffee, Pike Place.  I’ve always liked Starbucks, actually, but certainly knew what my mother meant when she said she couldn’t drink Starbucks because she thought it was like battery acid.  And I’m addicted to Sweet ’n Low (hold that thought for a different post) and find I can add less to the new brew, so that’s a nice added benefit in my book.

But when Howard Schultz said that he thought the brew and other changes would refresh/restore the brand’s luster, I was a little surprised.

Starbucks is an addiction for many many people.  We line up like lemmings to hand over anywhere from $2.50-$7 for a cup of joe.  The coffee itself is not the company’s problem.  They did wander off the reservation a bit with other products, such as breakfast food, but I firmly believe that the new products themselves did not trigger the resulting gripes:  it was the bad smell the food created and the way the new offerings slowed down the lines.  In other words, the underlying problem was not the product but the reduction in service that resulted.  The new products screwed with that delicate intangible – how it made us feel – and the fat lady began to sing.

Brand is based on characteristics that ascend a company’s products:  desire, aspiration, pleasure.   On top of their smelly and slow breakfast pitch, Starbucks is suffering because it isn’t doing a great job hiring, it’s not able to  handle long lines (and the wandering minstrel wearing the headset is just plain irritating, because all it does is move the bottleneck down the line to the cashiers), and it compromised its physical environment:  all of which punched a hole in the hipness (i.e. Seattle coffee house) that was so important to the company early on. 

Coolness, status, specialness… these are the things that got people to spend.  Take these intangibles away and you’re just a cup of expensive coffee in the middle of a recession.
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