coffee business strategies

I’m not an interior designer and have limited abilities with respect to to furnishings and color (I recently told my painter to “surprise me” when remodeling my house), so you can imagine my surprise to have been contacted back in March on the subject by Specialty Coffee Retailer magazine. Not only was I quoted in [...]

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I was asked to comment for an upcoming article on the topic of how (and why) coffee shop furniture and decor items can be used as retail branding elements, but may have gone a little overboard with my reply. The topic of branding, after all, is a fairly complex one and ties into a number [...]

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Remember the good ol’ days of early February when Starbucks was under fire for its plans to introduce value meals? We were all so innocent back then… nothing like the turbulent times since mid-February, when the attention instantly shifted to plans for instant coffee. It was back in those heady pre-VIA days of skittles and [...]

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In development for 20 years, news of Starbucks instant coffee project was leaked 5 days before today’s unveiling; conveniently, just enough time for buzz to circulate over the weekend before the official announcement. The product, called “Via” will be initially marketed in Seattle and Chicago. In a statement this morning to the Huffington Post, CEO [...]

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I can only imagine what executives at Starbucks must have been thinking/drinking/smoking (pick one) when they prepared a schedule press announcements for this month. Let’s see how the planning session really happened in another popular installment of Behind the Green Door: We need to create some brand value. I know, we’ll announce a “value meal” [...]

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