Steve Flanagan is Director, Marketing and Category for Starbucks UK, and outlined at last week’s UK Coffee Leader Summit some of the Starbucks thinking on the UK coffee scene and its plans going forward.
For Starbucks, great coffee is still the key driver: there is no substitute for delivering great quality and taste, or for the expertise needed to do so, which is why major investment in barista training is undertaken and ongoing.
However, coffee tastes do not stand still, and two years ago Starbucks responded with the introduction of Origin Espresso coffees: there are now 5 choices in the range, which now accounts for 15% of coffee sales.
Relevant
There are many aspects to being ‘closely connected or appropriate’ to your customers and market, including:
- Using and embracing the technology becoming available – mobile apps, for example
- Engaging with Starbucks’ vast customer base which affords real opportunities, but must be handled with great care
- My Starbucks Reward scheme: massive membership scheme with regular e-mail communications, news, offers; 15% of customers today pay by mobile app (the quickest way to pay), and growing fast
- Joining digital to physical ‘spaces’: the mobile world (see Reward scheme above) must connect to and work with the physical world – customers expect to communicate through their mobiles, even if they collect a physical product, and drink it in a Starbucks outlet
- Abandoning the ‘cookie cutter’ store: the days of standardised stores are over, with new and refurbished stores being localised with their own, individual personalities – but the brand DNA has to be maintained within them. However, the sales uplifts achieved by ‘localised’ stores demonstrate the value of the approach to both customers and the business.
Responsible
As everyone in the coffee sector knows, Starbucks in the UK suffered from a wave of adverse (and often unfair) publicity in 2013, and has been working very hard to recover from it. It already had many ‘responsible’ policies and initiatives in place, including:
- Youth Action: local youth programmes and grants for specific initiatives
- Apprenticeships: 1,000 apprentices will have been taken on with guaranteed jobs by the end of 2014
- At source: working with and supporting coffee farmers and their communities
We can expect to see Starbucks building during 2014 on these programmes and initiatives in its marketing, increasing awareness of its responsible approach to the environment, communities and suppliers.