Well Starbucks has the number one online brand presence as rated by several sources, so I'd say they are doing a pretty good job on that front. They are also early-adopters of mobile payment systems at select stores in the United States using your smart phone. One strategy that Starbucks could try online from my perspective of the might be trying to entice consumers with promotional rewards, say for every $100 you spend at Starbucks we'll give you a free Starbucks branded promotional item. They could also do what so many other companies are doing these days and eliminate some of the workforce, and integrate more duties with less pay for the current employees. Outsourcing cheaper labor would also work. Taking notes from what the corporate law firms and banks are doing, they could bring in one manager to learn what the lesser majority does, then take the knowledge overseas to teach and train the less expensive labor markets and save the bottom line.
To increase favor with their shareholders, they really need to identify their capital to them. Whether or not they have the resources to retain their current growth, and/or surpass it. They also need to increase their sales quite a bit in order to repress the shareholders fears. This ties directly with consumers. As long as consumers buy, the shareholders will buy stock, and feel comfortable with keeping it. To get consumers to consume more, they need to offer more of their products at reduced prices to not only increase their customer base, but to encourage the purchasing of more items. Since Starbucks has no absolute or comparative advantage over other coffee stores, the only way they can increase their customer base is by lowering prices, advertising the lowered prices, and advertising the enhanced quality of their products. This will all inherently drive up the customer base, encourage sales, cause the shareholders to become more confident in the company stock, and encourage more people to invest in Starbucks stock.
They could also look into shutting down nonproductive lines of their company completely. Just cutting the ties at each store producing a loss over the last year or two would help the oversaturation that has occurred. Some baristas and management staff maybe should be replaced completely with fresh blood to provide with newer and different ideas and fresh faces for the consumer to enjoy. Or maybe Starbucks should clean house, and sell everything that they have. Selling small but noticeable items such as the vanilla sprinkles that are on the lattes and other espresso drinks could be a great move that they could mark up and bring more value to the shareholders along with bringing favor back to the customer base. Or even selling the pumpkin spice and gingerbread syrups during fall and winter seasons respectively. These are always great sellers at the specific time of year, so why not put it on the shelves at stores like Kroger and Biggs.
Maybe Starbucks needs to reach out to the alienated ‘regular guy’ who doesn’t normally frequent the corner store. Part of the problem with Starbucks’ original model was appealing to a very specific audience. I can understand the idea of providing an authentic coffee house experience, but the culture of Starbucks is closed to certain groups. They should try to expand the market and provide lower priced and cost efficient blends as well as the light and dark roasts.
They also should advertise the free wireless internet access with in store personal computers that Starbucks provides, but with limited free roaming and advertising pop-ups that cannot be blocked that sell certain and specifically Starbucks branded products. They should also use social media to provide opportunities for customer feedback and provide customers promotional offers. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are all forums that Starbucks does not currently provide a strong presence in. Starbucks should be relegated to one store per square block. In improving the public image, they need to keep the stores cleaner. They sell good coffee, but the tables are usually messy and stained. Maybe a barista needs to be on constant watch to have better upkeep of the high priced coffee shop. Starbucks did really well when it was a rapidly growing company, obviously. They have added the instant coffee and flavored single serve packets to just add hot water and it seems to have over saturated their market even more. People are now frequenting Kroger more, which pulls them out of spending $5 on an espresso beverage and pinching more pennies at the grocery. There are Starbucks coffee shops in just about every developed country in the world. There is probably a limit on coffee consumption and the company seems to have reached the peak consumption point.
They could look into developing an even more premium blend of coffee to attract the top executives to drop some more cheese on the upper echelon, top notch ultra premium blends. Creating the greatest tasting coffee in the history of the world would bring in the richest and the most prestigious, therefore starting an epidemic and then they could utilize celebrity marketing to the fullest extent. Once the economy turns around, the middle class will also begin to devote more disposable income towards the top tiered goods from SBUX.
MMBC
Mountain Man Brewing Company (MMBC) has been successful because of many different reasons. Also known as “West Virginia’s beer”, MMBC brewed one beer, Mountain Man Lager. Guntar Prangel founded MMBC in 1925. He reformulated an old family brew recipe and by the 1960s the lager’s reputation as a quality beer was well entrenched throughout the East Central region of the United States. It was a legacy brew in a mature business. It had held the top market position among lagers in West Virginia for half of a century, and had respectable market share for an old school, regional brewery in most of the states where the beer was distributed. The lager was priced similarly to premium domestic brands Miller and Budweiser, and below specialty brands such as Samuel Adams. They stuck with the original 1925 design of a crew of coal miners on the label.
MMBC relied on its status as an independent, family-owned brewery and history to create an aura of authenticity and to position the beer with its core drinkers—blue collar, middle-to-lower income men over 45 years old. West Virginian’s rated the lager as the best-known regional beer, and won “Best Beer in West Virginia” from 1997-2005. Brand awareness was one cornerstone, along with the perception of quality and the brand loyalty it cultivated creating the brand’s success with blue-collar consumers. Research shows it being as recognizable in the East Central region as Chevy and John Deere. Over time MMBC has invested in multiple branding activities to build brand equity with their core customers. The distributors focused most of their servicing on their main customer and established its own sales force. This helped to not only push the brand, but created an environment where off-premise locations would also embrace Mountain Man Brewing. Blue-collar males purchase 60% of the beer they drink at off-premise locations, and MMBC sold 70% from these places.
Competition in the U.S. beer market falls into four separate categories: major and second-tier domestic producers, import beer companies, and specialty brewers. MMBC’s continued success was in large part due to the fact that it served a large enough market with a very strong brand, and it therefore could continue to compete against national players with deep pockets such as Anheuser-Busch, the company’s most significant competitor.
Due to changes in beer drinkers’ preferences, the company has experienced declining sales for the first time in the company’s history. I believe that Chris should launch Mountain Man Light, in order to remedy the current situation. This would attract younger drinkers to the brand. Over the previous six years, light beer sales in the United States had been growing at a compound annual rate of 4%, while traditional premium beer sales had declined annually by the same percentage. Most industry observers agreed that the key consumer segment for beer companies was younger drinkers, 21-27 years of age. This group represented the “first-time drinker demographic” that had not yet established loyalty to any particular brand of beer. The segment represented about 13% of the adult population in 2005, but accounted for more than 27% of total beer consumption and was growing. In addition, this age group spent twice as much per capita on alcoholic beverages than consumers over 35 years of age and was forecasted to grow by nearly four million by the year 2010.
Another significant trend was growth in the “light” beer category which had been steadily gaining in market share and accounted for 50.4% of volume sales in 2005, compared with 29.8% in 2001. In fact, younger consumers preferred light beer to other categories. They also typically consumed in quantity. A consumer study revealed that while Mountain Man rated high in terms of awareness with the younger, light-beer drinking segment of the market, Mountain Man Lager tracked very low as a purchasing preference-as did other lagers and fuller-flavor brews. Industry observers believed new products introduced beer drinkers to both styles of beer while simultaneously keeping them in the “brand” family. Product line extensions leveraging the core brand name often helped brewers obtain greater shelf space for products and created greater product focus among distributors and retailers. Mountain Man was now alone among the major and regional beer companies in not having expanded its product line beyond its flagship lager product.
Because younger beer drinkers held “anti-big-business” values, they did show some appreciation for the brand’s association with an independent brewery. Chris Prangel thought it was clear that product preferences in the beer market were changing, and that a light beer product was strategically important to MMBC’s future. First, light beer was a newer, fast-growing product category and the only beer category demonstrating consistent growth. A light beer would help MMBC gain share in on-premise locations i.e. restaurants and bars. Light beers appealed to younger drinkers overall, and to women, both groups that frequented these locations. Market research indicated that Mountain Man’s core customers did not state a brand preference in restaurants and bars. Chris believed that their brand recognition could translate into a meaningful share of the local light beer market and popularity could boost sales. He said, “this is our chance to play in the light beer sandbox but stay true to the Mountain Man brand by playing on the strengths of our core product.”
The Mountain Man Light product would generate a profit within two years, and sell enough barrels to cover both the associated launch marketing and incremental expenses that make up for the negative impact on overall profitability resulting from potential lost market sales of Mountain Man Lager. Financial projections show regional revenue growth of the light beer product at 4% annually and Mountain Man steadily would grow its share of the regional light beer market by a quarter of a percent each year off of a 2006 base market share of 0.25%. Oscar Prangel, president and owner, “Mountain Man is still standing because we manufacture an exceptional beer with a great brand name, we’ve never lost sight of our core customer, and we’ve never been seduced by the other guy’s market.” The revenues of Mountain Man are down, and I believe this is the best way for Chris to help his family business profit successfully again.
MMBC relied on its status as an independent, family-owned brewery and history to create an aura of authenticity and to position the beer with its core drinkers—blue collar, middle-to-lower income men over 45 years old. West Virginian’s rated the lager as the best-known regional beer, and won “Best Beer in West Virginia” from 1997-2005. Brand awareness was one cornerstone, along with the perception of quality and the brand loyalty it cultivated creating the brand’s success with blue-collar consumers. Research shows it being as recognizable in the East Central region as Chevy and John Deere. Over time MMBC has invested in multiple branding activities to build brand equity with their core customers. The distributors focused most of their servicing on their main customer and established its own sales force. This helped to not only push the brand, but created an environment where off-premise locations would also embrace Mountain Man Brewing. Blue-collar males purchase 60% of the beer they drink at off-premise locations, and MMBC sold 70% from these places.
Competition in the U.S. beer market falls into four separate categories: major and second-tier domestic producers, import beer companies, and specialty brewers. MMBC’s continued success was in large part due to the fact that it served a large enough market with a very strong brand, and it therefore could continue to compete against national players with deep pockets such as Anheuser-Busch, the company’s most significant competitor.
Due to changes in beer drinkers’ preferences, the company has experienced declining sales for the first time in the company’s history. I believe that Chris should launch Mountain Man Light, in order to remedy the current situation. This would attract younger drinkers to the brand. Over the previous six years, light beer sales in the United States had been growing at a compound annual rate of 4%, while traditional premium beer sales had declined annually by the same percentage. Most industry observers agreed that the key consumer segment for beer companies was younger drinkers, 21-27 years of age. This group represented the “first-time drinker demographic” that had not yet established loyalty to any particular brand of beer. The segment represented about 13% of the adult population in 2005, but accounted for more than 27% of total beer consumption and was growing. In addition, this age group spent twice as much per capita on alcoholic beverages than consumers over 35 years of age and was forecasted to grow by nearly four million by the year 2010.
Another significant trend was growth in the “light” beer category which had been steadily gaining in market share and accounted for 50.4% of volume sales in 2005, compared with 29.8% in 2001. In fact, younger consumers preferred light beer to other categories. They also typically consumed in quantity. A consumer study revealed that while Mountain Man rated high in terms of awareness with the younger, light-beer drinking segment of the market, Mountain Man Lager tracked very low as a purchasing preference-as did other lagers and fuller-flavor brews. Industry observers believed new products introduced beer drinkers to both styles of beer while simultaneously keeping them in the “brand” family. Product line extensions leveraging the core brand name often helped brewers obtain greater shelf space for products and created greater product focus among distributors and retailers. Mountain Man was now alone among the major and regional beer companies in not having expanded its product line beyond its flagship lager product.
Because younger beer drinkers held “anti-big-business” values, they did show some appreciation for the brand’s association with an independent brewery. Chris Prangel thought it was clear that product preferences in the beer market were changing, and that a light beer product was strategically important to MMBC’s future. First, light beer was a newer, fast-growing product category and the only beer category demonstrating consistent growth. A light beer would help MMBC gain share in on-premise locations i.e. restaurants and bars. Light beers appealed to younger drinkers overall, and to women, both groups that frequented these locations. Market research indicated that Mountain Man’s core customers did not state a brand preference in restaurants and bars. Chris believed that their brand recognition could translate into a meaningful share of the local light beer market and popularity could boost sales. He said, “this is our chance to play in the light beer sandbox but stay true to the Mountain Man brand by playing on the strengths of our core product.”
The Mountain Man Light product would generate a profit within two years, and sell enough barrels to cover both the associated launch marketing and incremental expenses that make up for the negative impact on overall profitability resulting from potential lost market sales of Mountain Man Lager. Financial projections show regional revenue growth of the light beer product at 4% annually and Mountain Man steadily would grow its share of the regional light beer market by a quarter of a percent each year off of a 2006 base market share of 0.25%. Oscar Prangel, president and owner, “Mountain Man is still standing because we manufacture an exceptional beer with a great brand name, we’ve never lost sight of our core customer, and we’ve never been seduced by the other guy’s market.” The revenues of Mountain Man are down, and I believe this is the best way for Chris to help his family business profit successfully again.
myspace outline and notes
The New Myspace
I.) WHERE IS THE BRAND- TODAY?
1) Current brand position
i) Include current brand promise (a place for friends), image (teenage wasteland), and target (teens & music)
2) Current Competition
3) Why the brand is irrelevant
II.) BRAND POSITIONING INITIATIVE
1) New Brand Promise
i) “Music to define a generation” or “Music defining the next generation”
2) New Brand Image
i) The world’s largest music social network
3) Target Market
i) We should target both people trying to add content and those trying to view content…
4) Consumer Wants and Needs
i) Ease of adding/changing content
ii) Ease of finding content/new music
iii) Friendly OS which can be connected to basic music recording equipment, as well as iTunes and other personal music collections legally
iv) Anywhere access. i.e. Mobile phone apps
III.) COMPETITION
1) Broad and Narrow Competition
i) Broad
(1) Anywhere consumers can find new music or add their own music
ii) ,
iii) Narrow
(1) , ,
IV.) BRAND DESIGN
1) Look and feel of the brand should incorporate pieces of the old Myspace brand, one that is trusted and had success.
2) Look and feel of the brand also needs a new “pop” to make it clear that Myspace is back to being relevant. I suggest adding the brand promise, or something similar to the new logo.
3) Advertising and Design should be clean and modern. I suggest moving to full color advertising sitting on black and white images, it really looks polished.
V.) LONG TERM
1) Focus on not only introducing the new brand but map a plan for upgrades and changes moving forward.
2) Strategy should be to build the most comprehensive music social network in the world. This is will be possible with Myspace’s former popularity and success with social/music networking coupled with the addition of the new tools mentioned above.
-create clear target market (all myspace accounts)
-create incentive to reopen accounts
-integrate tax deductibles and homeless credit cards into music industry through myspace
-band will pay for music video editing, portion of proceeds go to homeless credit card fund
-correlate HD into streaming live music from indy bands to myspace
-enhance sound quality with charitable donations that will integrate integrity, charity and music
-“Music is an escape from reality, through reality into reality and back again” “Built from the bottom up” “Music comes from inside and protrudes to create unique fantastic” “Stimulus packages for the less corporate” “Help the music industry grow and homeless population shrink” “Myspace is now our space” “mYspace is now Your place” “Filtering great tunes through great community-myspace”
-Portion of all profits will be contributed to a non-profit ‘homeless credit card’, created for the less fortunate without a place to rest their heads, in order to provide food & shelter through a card with an extremely high monitoring so as to not be used for anything other than essentials, also keeping track of what has been bought to alert if the person is in need of more assistance and cannot or will not provide for themselves
-Must create a reason for people to come back and stay back
-music video has gone to youtube, create a simpler music video platform for the non-pop artists trying to “make it big”, and integrate sound editors and graphic designers along with to connect free lance jobs and independent labels to recording studios easier
-myspace TV
-myspace network
-MySpaCe mUsIc
MySpaCe
mUsIc
I.) WHERE IS THE BRAND- TODAY?
1) Current brand position
i) Include current brand promise (a place for friends), image (teenage wasteland), and target (teens & music)
2) Current Competition
3) Why the brand is irrelevant
II.) BRAND POSITIONING INITIATIVE
1) New Brand Promise
i) “Music to define a generation” or “Music defining the next generation”
2) New Brand Image
i) The world’s largest music social network
3) Target Market
i) We should target both people trying to add content and those trying to view content…
4) Consumer Wants and Needs
i) Ease of adding/changing content
ii) Ease of finding content/new music
iii) Friendly OS which can be connected to basic music recording equipment, as well as iTunes and other personal music collections legally
iv) Anywhere access. i.e. Mobile phone apps
III.) COMPETITION
1) Broad and Narrow Competition
i) Broad
(1) Anywhere consumers can find new music or add their own music
ii) ,
iii) Narrow
(1) , ,
IV.) BRAND DESIGN
1) Look and feel of the brand should incorporate pieces of the old Myspace brand, one that is trusted and had success.
2) Look and feel of the brand also needs a new “pop” to make it clear that Myspace is back to being relevant. I suggest adding the brand promise, or something similar to the new logo.
3) Advertising and Design should be clean and modern. I suggest moving to full color advertising sitting on black and white images, it really looks polished.
V.) LONG TERM
1) Focus on not only introducing the new brand but map a plan for upgrades and changes moving forward.
2) Strategy should be to build the most comprehensive music social network in the world. This is will be possible with Myspace’s former popularity and success with social/music networking coupled with the addition of the new tools mentioned above.
-create clear target market (all myspace accounts)
-create incentive to reopen accounts
-integrate tax deductibles and homeless credit cards into music industry through myspace
-band will pay for music video editing, portion of proceeds go to homeless credit card fund
-correlate HD into streaming live music from indy bands to myspace
-enhance sound quality with charitable donations that will integrate integrity, charity and music
-“Music is an escape from reality, through reality into reality and back again” “Built from the bottom up” “Music comes from inside and protrudes to create unique fantastic” “Stimulus packages for the less corporate” “Help the music industry grow and homeless population shrink” “Myspace is now our space” “mYspace is now Your place” “Filtering great tunes through great community-myspace”
-Portion of all profits will be contributed to a non-profit ‘homeless credit card’, created for the less fortunate without a place to rest their heads, in order to provide food & shelter through a card with an extremely high monitoring so as to not be used for anything other than essentials, also keeping track of what has been bought to alert if the person is in need of more assistance and cannot or will not provide for themselves
-Must create a reason for people to come back and stay back
-music video has gone to youtube, create a simpler music video platform for the non-pop artists trying to “make it big”, and integrate sound editors and graphic designers along with to connect free lance jobs and independent labels to recording studios easier
-myspace TV
-myspace network
-MySpaCe mUsIc
MySpaCe
mUsIc
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