Starbucks Not Starbucks Anymore

[Gio]

So says an article in the Seattle Times. The corporation is looking to change the name of their iconic coffee shops to give them "a community personality."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html...

[Sharuf]

Looks like they have too many vice presidents in their marketing dept.

[Pata_Negra]

i think i saw it in Lijiang, China! [scroll to very last photo http://saudades.proboards.com/index.c...

]

i call it Bigbucks coffee when in no-coffee-culture countries .

[legourmettv]

That's funny! I've been to Liijiang, but I missed that.

The Starbucks in the forbidden city in Beijing did really rub me the wrong way when I came around a corner and saw it staring me in the face.

G.

[Pata_Negra]

it's gone now. and yes i remember sitting in there holding up a magazine the whole time because domestic tourists [and others as well] were all taking photos of the place.

so when are they going to install a Bigbucks inside the Temple of Heaven?! ;)

[legourmettv]

They won't change all of their shops, and "Starbucks fans' won't switch... since they mostly buy into the name branding / status.

I'm also sure that Sbucks will make a big deal about the stores that they are changing, so it's not like they are trying to fool anyone.

G.

[roro1831]

Here's the MSN article

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/...

[babette feasts]

It would be comical if it weren't so sleazy.

[ferret]

Sleazy how? You either like what they offer or you don't. I'd like to think I could recognize Starbuck's regardless of the name, and people who favor local spots won't be lured away by no-name coffee anyhow. It's a silly marketing move and if it fools anyone, they're not likely to be fooled more than once.

[babette feasts]

Something about the way they drove those funky little places out of business with their slickness but are now hurting for business and trying to be funky again... Something about selling the exact same thing as the rest of the global chain but pretending to be an independent... If Starbucks is a good brand, why do they need to masquerade as '15th St. Coffeehouse' (slated to open in SEA soon)? It's not as if they are starting a single second brand. They are opening individually named coffeehouses but selling Starbucks product, no doubt hoping nobody will notice. People who like Starbucks already go there. People who don't go to the independents. Don't you think they are trying to lure the people who resent their global domination and bad coffee by pretending to be tiny, individual, independent shops? How are you supposed to keep track of who is who when one player has multiple aliases?

[scubadoo97]

I think sending teams of observers with notebooks into independent shops to rip off their ideas is sleazy.

[LindaWhit]

That's exactly what I thought - if they're so good at this, why did they need to observe a real local coffee shop for so long?

But I had to laugh at one of the comments in the Seattle Times article: "And each employee with be required to wear 15 pieces of flair. "

And someone else's comment: "Maybe they can have a band there and play smelly cat."

:-D

[Withnail42]

Funky items like wacky buttons on suspenders?

It certainly is on the sleazy to secretly try to further rip of the little places that they have really worked very hard drive out of business. In many way that very strategy of over saturation (brand bombing) is what got them into trouble in the first place.

[mrfood16]

How is that sleazy? Every business looks at similar businesses and takes ideas and try to improve on them. For big companies, it is common to try to hire away talent from competing companies. This isn't some high tech computer chip industry where corporate espionage can exist by copying proprietary fabrication methods.

[babette feasts]

They dominate the coffee business, worldwide. Why do they need to go hangout at Victrola for a year?

[mrfood16]

Maybe because they aren't satisfying everyone,such as yourself.

[babette feasts]

Ooooooh, so they were hanging out at Victrola for a year trying to figure out how to make BETTER COFFEE...it's all so clear now.

; )

[SnackHappy]

Next up, McDonald's changes its name to Grampa's Funtime Family Diner.

This is some bullshit. How long do they think they can fool us?