When measuring marketing performance, you have to know why customers really buy a product? Not because the product is a collection of attributes but because those attributes, together with the brand’s image, the service, and many other tangible and intangible factors, create an attractive whole. In some cases, the whole isn’t even something that customers know or can say they want.
Consider Starbucks. It’s not just a cup of coffee. In 1983, Starbucks was a small Seattle-area coffee retailer. Then while on vacation in Italy, Howard Schultz, was inspired by the romance and the sense of community he felt in Italian coffee bars and coffee houses. The culture grabbed him, and he saw an opportunity. “It seemed so obvious,” Schultz says in the 1997 book he wrote with Dori Jones Yang, Pour Your Heart Into It.
“Starbucks sold great coffee beans, but we didn’t serve coffee by the cup. We treated coffee as produce, something to be bagged and sent home with the groceries. We stayed one big step away from the heart and soul of what coffee has meant throughout centuries.”
And so Starbucks began to focus its efforts on building a coffee bar culture, opening coffee houses like those in Italy. Just as important, the company maintained control over the coffee from start to finish– from the selection and procurement of the beans to their roasting and blending to their ultimate consumption. And while Starbucks has suffered from the recent downturn in the economy like so many other businesses, the extreme vertical integration is still a case study in delivering superior marketing performance.
Starbucks locations (while fewer) continue to deliver superior benefits to customers by appealing to all five senses– through the enticing aroma of the beans, the rich taste of the coffee, the product displays and attractive artwork adorning the walls, the contemporary music playing in the background, and even the cozy, clean feel of the tables and chairs. Marketing performance is about adding value to your product by delivering on your customers’ desires.
Tags: brand design, Branding, delivering, starbucks