Why Starbucks manages to sell so much coffee -well, they gossip about it!

by chee Leng (on coffee makers)
(Singapore)

What do I mean by Starbucks gossiping about its coffee? Here is how it goes, what do you do when you are on facebook? Most of the time sharing the latest Gossip right?

Well, Starbucks has just a won an award for the best Gossiper (just a joke, don't even know if there is such a word).

Seriously, Starbucks did very well and won the 15th NMA effectiveness award. Their Starbucks rewards campaign using facebook and mobile vouchers won them tons of fans.

And with this tons of fans, its translates to thousands dollars worth of sales.

This is a campaign involving 611 UK stores, resulting in an increase of 100 over thousands fans and tens of thousands of mobile vouchers downloads within a day!

In just one day, this facebook business page grew to 360 000 fans.

You might have heard of how people say Starbucks coffee is not so good and stuff like that, but in a recent coffee survey (more on that in another article) that we conducted in Singapore, guess which is the most popular coffee -YUP, it is Starbucks.

The thing is Starbucks has very strong brand presence, and it is so entrenched in consumers' mind that the first thing that came to their mind about a coffee is Starbucks.

My $0.02.

Starbucks has always been on the innovative end when it comes to marketing, a good example is the lady gaga tie-up that it did recently that involves QR code -smashing success.

Like I have always said, Starbucks do not sell coffee, they sell experience. In the end, you want to go to an outlet to have an experience, not just a coffee.

A coffee is a product, a commodity, and for that you cannot charge high. But, when you sell an experience, you set the price to that experience.

I think Starbucks is experimenting with different types of experience in its high street cafe model (and with some shops selling alcohol), and this is an element that would keep consumers visiting their outlets and checking them out.

Oh, by the way, in case you are thinking how potent or powerful can Gossiping be (i.e facebook). Here is the number:

1. Every fan has about 100 friends.

2. Starbucks has 300 000 fans, and the vouchers would appear in most of the fans' wall if it achieves good edgerank (lots of comments and likes which most Starbucks post has).

3. And that would mean every Starbucks post would be read by 300 000 fans X 100 friends. or roughly 30 million impressions.

That is super good exposure, don't you think so? And that is a reason why the whole world is rushing to market their stuff on facebook now...

Everyone loves a good gossip, don't they?