Success Story of Starbucks: Network Analysis
Article Source: https://martinroll.com/resources/articles/strategy/secret-starbucks-brand-success/
The article provides a very detailed discussion of the strategies Starbucks used to reach such widespread popularity and survive in a very competitive market. According to the author, the success of Starbucks comes from its attempt to diversify its marketing strategies. The article notes that among some of the company’s most successful marketing decisions is its focus on branding and uniqueness of their product. The coffee shop has developed a very distinguishable logo as well as distinguishable traditions and and made them very “visible in consumer’s life”. Moreover, the products Starbucks sells also have very unique characteristics: the visual appearance of the drinks as well as the names are easily recognized by millions of people. The article also mentioned other successful marketing campaigns such as “social gifting feature” as well as its large number of seasonal drinks.
All of the mentioned strategies are closely related to the concepts we discussed in class. As many other food services, Starbucks uses the power of networks to increase popularity of its products as well as the vision of the brand in the eyes of it customers. The article says that, although Starbucks still uses direct advertisements, the main marketing strategy of the company is to focus on the uniqueness of their brand. At first, one might think that not using direct advertisement as much might hurt the company since the information will not reach enough people for it to become successful. However, designing its own apparel, promoting the tradition of writing down customers’ names as well as creating visually distinctive drinks makes up for the lack of direct advertisement. As we saw in class, spread of a specific product in a graph depends on both, the network structure as well as the “visibility” of product. Other marketing strategy used by Starbucks- offering a wide variety of seasonal drinks- can also be explained by the concepts covered in class. By advertising its drinks as “seasonal” the company sends a message of urgency to its customers. The customers start to believe that the product might sell out quickly, so they need to get it as fast as they can(and as much as they can). Therefore, as we saw in class, the product does as well as the buyers believe it it to do.