Starbucks Marketing Strategies Analysis

This assignment requires you to analyze Starbucks' diverse marketing strategies, with a particular focus on their social media approach. Examine their campaigns, customer engagement tactics, and the impact on brand perception. Discuss both successful initiatives and areas where they faced challenges.

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Social Media Strategy and Management

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
About Starbucks.........................................................................................................................4
Social Media Presence of Starbucks..........................................................................................4
Social Media Audience of Starbucks.........................................................................................9
Social Media Marketing of Starbucks........................................................................................9
Ethics, Privacy and Security Issues..........................................................................................12
Social Media Technologies used by Starbuck.........................................................................15
Facebook..............................................................................................................................15
Twitter..................................................................................................................................16
Pinterest................................................................................................................................16
Google+................................................................................................................................17
Instagram..............................................................................................................................18
Conclusions..............................................................................................................................19
Recommendations....................................................................................................................20
Table of Figures
Figure 1: Social Media Presence of Starbucks...........................................................................5
Figure 2: Year of Good Video...................................................................................................6
Figure 3: Starbucks Page in Pinterest.........................................................................................7
Figure 4: Meet Me at Starbucks Campaign................................................................................8
Figure 5: Inspiring Ideas @ Starbucks.....................................................................................10
Figure 6: Tweets for Starbucks................................................................................................13
Figure 7: Tweets for Starbucks................................................................................................14
Figure 8: Facebook Page of Starbucks.....................................................................................15
Figure 9: Twitter Account for Starbucks.................................................................................16
Figure 10: Pinterest Page for Starbucks...................................................................................17
Figure 11: Google+ Account of Starbucks...............................................................................18
Figure 12: Instagram Page of Starbucks..................................................................................19

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Executive Summary
Diverse social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and
Instagram are being extensively used by Starbucks for generating an effective presence in the
target market and thereby in both attracting and sustaining potential audiences for marketing
and promoting its coffee and tea products and recipes. Starbucks focuses on developing
innovative and creative marketing and promotional campaigns through the use of the social
media platforms. Starbucks however needs to enhance on its security and ethical paradigm
through the use of double stage authentication for encouraging further viewership and
activity.

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Introduction
The report focuses on to understand the strategy and management regarding the employment
of Social Media by Starbucks. The analysis would be carried out in terms of reflecting the
presence of the company in social media sites, the target market or audience for Starbucks in
the social media platforms, the social media marketing and promotional campaigns conducted
by Starbucks, the different types of social media technologies in force and finally the ethical
and security standpoint of the social media activities of the institution.
About Starbucks
Starbucks started its operation during 1971. Currently, Starbucks operates through a network
of around 24,000 retail outlets spanning across 70 different countries to serve millions of
customers on a daily average basis. The mission of Starbucks is to help in inspiring and
nurturing the human spirit through serving one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a
specific interval. Further, Starbucks works in serving the best quality coffee product made
from ethically sourced raw materials. The Starbucks stores are developed for entertaining
customers visiting with families and friends and are served with quality services and
beverage products in an effective ambience ( Starbucks Corporation, 2017).
Social Media Presence of Starbucks
The social media business presence of Starbucks can be effectively perceived from the
following statistics.

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Figure 1: Social Media Presence of Starbucks
(Grace, 2017)
The above illustration ideally reflects on the large number of followers made by Starbucks
along the different social media platforms used by online users on a global basis. The social
media marketing and promotional campaigns devised by Starbucks earns needed weight
owing to the artistic features incorporated in such. In a recent video produced and reflected
by Starbucks called, ‘Starbucks-A Year of Good’ the café retail chain initiated through
generating attracting statements about the coffee products rendered by them wherein a
subsequent fashion it reflects that how the buying of coffee products contributed in enhancing
recruitment of 8,000 veterans and even helped in sending around 6,535 baristas to complete
their college education. Further, the video also highlighted the fact that procuring coffee
products from Starbucks has considerably helped in generating support to around 301,506
firms conducting trade on an ethical basis. The video also reflected the manner in which
Starbucks had appreciated the people and groups for rendering needed support during 2016
(Grace, 2017). An illustration of the video produced by Starbucks is reflected as follows.

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Figure 2: Year of Good Video
(Grace, 2017)
Likewise, Starbucks tends to enhance its presence in YouTube through dividing the different
videos rendered in its channel along diverse playlists for easy checking and viewing.
Different clips like ‘How To’ and also ‘Coffee Recipes’ ideally contribute in helping normal
users understand the process of making Iced Coffee Lemonade and also other recipes like
Cold Brew Mocha. The rendering of videos along different playlists and also the generation
of other viewing categories like ‘About Our Food’ ideally contribute in sustaining effective
relationship with customers (Rainey, 2017). Starbucks focuses on developing increased brand
awareness about their coffee products and recipes in the larger target market. Similarly, other
categories like ‘Giving Back’ and ‘Starbucks Jobs’ potentially reflect on the social
responsibility and accountability aspects of Starbucks in the global market. Further,
Starbucks has rendered and divided the video posts on a country and regional basis like Asia-
Pacific Starbucks (Grace, 2017).

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In terms of developing an effective presence in Pinterest, Starbucks had again rendered
different kinds of recipes for tea and coffee products while also generated cute pictures of
people sipping over a cup of coffee or tea at a Starbuck outlet. Starbucks also focuses on
customers enjoying sipping coffee in the fancy coffee cups by posting like pictures in
Instagram. The fancy coffee cups reflected by Starbucks in Instagram are illustrated below.
Figure 3: Starbucks Page in Pinterest
(Grace, 2017)
The social media presence of Starbucks is also analysed to enhance the feeling of comfort
and satisfaction focused on being rendered by the café retail chain to its customers. The social
media posts are rendered in such fashion as to encourage the people in availing coffee or tea
products and recipes from Starbucks rather than conducting push sales to them. Starbucks
also focuses on promptly replying to the queries and complaints generated by the customers
along the social media network, Facebook (Grace, 2017).

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In addition to the above accounts, two effective social media campaigns like ‘Meet Me at
Starbucks’ and Tweet-a-Coffee generated by Starbucks through the use of diverse social
networking platforms.
The social media campaign, ‘Meet Me at Starbucks’ carried out by Starbucks during 2014
encouraged participants to render a story of their meeting with friends, life and business
partners or even strangers at Starbucks outlets in exchange for free coffee for a year. The
promotional video of the campaign was distributed by Starbucks to around 28 different
countries that ideally reflected the bonds made by people while sipping coffee at their outlets.
The promotional video is illustrated as follows.
Figure 4: Meet Me at Starbucks Campaign
(Grace, 2017)
Likewise, the second social media marketing campaign conducted by Starbucks during the
period 2013-14 identified as ‘Tweet-a-Coffee’ encouraged intensive interaction between
customers over Tweeter. It was the first ever e-gifting service carried out by Starbucks
through the use of the stated campaign that engaged in around 27,000 customers and
contributed in generating revenue of around $180,000 within a span of some months. Users

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participating in the promotional campaign earned the privilege of gifting coffee to their
friends and relatives through the use of Tweeter (Grace, 2017).
Social Media Audience of Starbucks
The target audience of Starbucks along the different social media platforms is essentially
constituted by both men and women customers ranging between the ages of 25 to 40 years. It
is analysed that the above target group of men and women customers account for 49 percent
of the total business conducted by Starbucks in the global marketplace. Another, target
audience group aged 18 to 24 years is analysed to account for around 40 percent of the total
business conducted by Starbucks on an annual basis (Rainey, 2017). Further, the target social
media audience of Starbucks is also constituted by young college students and other
teenagers that flock over to the different outlets of Starbucks for chatting, writing term papers
or even for discussing on different issues. In terms of economic class customers belonging to
middle and rich households are observed to visit Starbucks’ outlets. Apart from the above
target groups, potential target customers also consist of kids aged between 13 to 17 years.
The kids though account for 2 percent of sales for Starbucks are potentially helped by their
parents or guardians in procuring tea or coffee products marketed by Starbucks (Shah, 2015).
Social Media Marketing of Starbucks
Starbucks essentially relies on the social media platforms for developing effective marketing
strategies for engaging larger number of customers in getting interested on the tea and coffee
products sold by it. ‘My Starbucks Idea’ is the name of a customer engagement campaign
formulated by Starbucks through the use of the social media networks that encourages
customers for generating feedbacks and even post different queries for new product and
marketing ideas generated and applied by the company (Moth, 2013). Similarly, the
campaign was also conducted for encouraging customers in rendering new and fresh ideas to
Starbucks for assisting in enhancing the sales of its products and also in increasing awareness
about the brand in the target market. The marketing project conducted by Starbucks
contributed in generating needed importance to customers for encouraging them to take
active part in business and creative decision making with the company staffs and managers. It
thus helped in making the customers feel an integrated part of Starbucks’ business. Further,

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the marketing campaign also helped Starbucks develop effective relationship with the
customers wherein newer ideas were gained regarding the generation of reward cards and
also ceasing the use of paper cups as a mark for enhancing the existence service quality
(Hajli, 2015).
The ‘My Starbucks Idea’ campaign countered huge success in that around 150,000 different
ideas were gained from customers that encouraged the execution of around 277 different
innovations for the company. The same is reflected below.
Figure 5: Inspiring Ideas @ Starbucks
(MyStarbucksIdea.com, 2014)

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Similarly, Starbucks has also developed a blog named as ‘Ideas in Action’ that encourages
customers for generating newer ideas along different categories like product and service
ideas. The status of the application of different ideas rendered by the customers as being
reviewed, reviewed, under application and finally launched are also generated for making the
customers feel involved. Monetary incentives were generated by Starbucks to customers that
had contributed with effective ideas. During 2010, Starbucks is observed to have generated
around $20,000 to customers having rendered effective ideas concerning the recycled uses of
cups. Further, Starbucks had also worked on its mobile commerce engagement framework
that encouraged the customers to view and thereby order and pay for coffee or tea recipes
through the use of Smartphones (Turban, Strauss, & Lai, 2015). Apart from the above
marketing tactics, Starbucks also encourages advertisers to render advertisements about their
products, services and other contests on the Facebook wall of the company and also other job
postings and vacancies. Cross promotional activities conducted in the above accord helped
Starbucks gain access to larger and newer markets. The use of Tweeter is increasingly made
by Starbucks for rendering of tweets in a prompt fashion regarding updates on offers and
other campaigns. During 2013, Starbucks recorded the largest number of followers for the
tweets generated by Starbucks (Turban, Strauss, & Lai, 2015).
Starbucks focuses on using the social media platform, Facebook for interacting and informing
customers about existing products and services rendered by the company. Further, the
company also gains greater accessibility to customers through posting on diverse social
networking platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter and also on Pinterest.
Generating posts on such diverse social networking platforms contributes in enhancing
visibility of the customers to products and offers of the company, accessing newer audiences
and also in reinforcing existing relationships with customers. Customer engagement activities
are also conducted by Starbucks through encouraging customers in hunting for new
advertisements and thereby take photographs and post on Twitter. In exchange Gift Cards
were issued to customers. An online game Pumpkin Spice Latte was introduced by Starbucks
such that the campaign focused on promising the sales of the game in the region where the
winner dwells before selling the same in other markets (Poirier, 2014).
Social media marketing is also conducted by Starbucks through the use of Facebook for
promoting its Fair Trade activities regarding the ethical sourcing of coffee beans from
plantations. Similarly, other campaigns like rendering free coffee to customers that would

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bring their own personal cups as a part of a green initiative was also undertaken by the
company (Poirier, 2014).
Ethics, Privacy and Security Issues
An ethical issue faced by Starbucks regarding its social media marketing campaigns is
reflected on the criticisms faced by the company management for the ‘Race Together’
campaign conducted during 2015. The company earned potential criticisms from the general
public for the anti-racist campaign where people stated that the barista is required to stay
away from conducting such campaigns and rather should focus on conducting its barista
business (Friedersdorf, 2015). The ‘Race Together’ campaign of Starbucks earned a total
failure while it attracted potential jokes from the mass market. The people commented that it
is needed for Starbucks to look forward in addressing diversity issues within the company
rather than encouraging the growth of a national conversation on the internet on such a
sensitive issue (Shah, 2015).
The social media campaign, ‘Race Together’ was also criticised on the ground that Starbucks
was employing a political campaign for generating greater profits. Further, Starbucks being
governed and managed essentially by whites with only 40 percent of the internal population
belonging to minority groups the campaign proved to be less demanding and awkward in
nature (The Economist , 2015).
Starbucks in recent times became the centre of yet another social media controversy for
rendering tweets regarding the recruitment of refugees in sharp contrast to the anti-refugee
policies of the Trump government. The statement made by the CEO of Starbucks, Howard
Schultz reflecting on the hiring of around 10,000 refugees encouraged mixed statements from
different people in Twitter. The same is illustrated below.

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Figure 6: Tweets for Starbucks
(Kell, 2017)
Tweets were generated reflecting #BoycottStarbucks as a sign for protesting against the
recruitment undertakings of the company for hiring refugees (Kell, 2017).
Along with the above controversies, Starbucks also faced an issue regarding its app that
proved to be potentially unsecured owing to the absence of two-step authentication for
enhancing the security standards (Your News, 2017).

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Some tweets are rendered below that reflects on the growing hacking activity regarding the
use of the Starbucks App for purchasing coffee products and recipes.
Figure 7: Tweets for Starbucks
(Rainey, 2017)
Starbucks however reflected that it had requested its users to change their passwords to
counter the impacts of the security threat (Rainey, 2017).

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Social Media Technologies used by Starbuck
Starbucks focuses on the usage of different types of social media platforms like Facebook,
Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and also Instagram. The mode of using the different social media
networks by Starbucks is further detailed as follows.
Facebook
Unlike other companies aiming to develop an effective social presence through their
Facebook accounts, Starbucks is observed to infrequently venture in its Facebook account for
posting any new information or activity. It however has around 33 million fans and followers
in Facebook. The posts generated by Starbucks are aesthetic and attractive that in turn invites
large number of likes and comments. Though, Starbuck is argued not to react or answer to the
comments posted by the viewers in its Facebook account yet the posts rendered in the form of
videos, coupons and even surveys with relevant product images invite considerable attention
(Moth, 2013). The same is illustrated below.
Figure 8: Facebook Page of Starbucks
(Moth, 2013)

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Twitter
Starbucks behaves in Twitter in a seemingly relaxed fashion in terms of rendering around 10
tweets on a daily average basis. The main tweets generated by Starbucks are associated to
product images and also related to the loyalty schemes carried out by the company. The
tweets of Starbucks are also featured in terms of @mentions. However, compared to
Facebook the tweets rendered by Starbucks in Twitter are observed to be unattractive in
nature (Moth, 2013). The same is illustrated as follows.
Figure 9: Twitter Account for Starbucks
(Moth, 2013)
Pinterest
As compared to the Facebook and Twitter accounts of Starbucks, the Pinterest account for
Starbucks stands out to be different owing to the attractiveness of the contents posted on it.
The Pinterest account for Starbucks is constituted by 7 different boards consisting of around
900 pins that had the potential in creating followers of more than 76,000. Further, the boards
are developed through the use of effective imagery that is sourced by Starbucks from
different third party sites (Moth, 2013). The Pinterest account for Starbucks is illustrated as
follows.

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Figure 10: Pinterest Page for Starbucks
(Moth, 2013)
Google+
Regards to the Google+ account for Starbucks it works on posting images and other posts that
are taken from the feeds posted in its Facebook and Twitter account. The tactic used by
Starbucks for enhancing its Google+ account has in turn generated more than 1 million
followers for the company (Moth, 2013). The Google+ page for Starbucks is reflected as
follows.

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Figure 11: Google+ Account of Starbucks
(Moth, 2013)
Instagram
The Instagram account for Starbucks though familiar with the style of content with other
brands like Red Bull ideally contributes in attracting more than a million followers. The
Instagram account has also been used by Starbucks for conducting a multichannel marketing
campaign (Moth, 2013). The Instagram account developed by Starbucks is reflected as
follows.

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Figure 12: Instagram Page of Starbucks
(Moth, 2013)
Conclusions
The analysis conducted in the report rightly reflects the extensive employment of diverse
social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest by
Starbucks in cultivating an enhanced social media presence. Further, different social media
marketing and promotional campaigns are conducted by Starbucks from time to time to
address the needs of the target audience. However, Starbucks is required to enhance the
security paradigm for encouraging greater user activity.

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Recommendations
Starbucks is required to enhance on its security and ethical platform for effectively carrying
out the social media campaigns in attracting potential audience from the larger market. It is
required to authenticate the passwords rendered by the customers with their mobile numbers
to enhance the security parameter.

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References
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https://www.starbucks.com/about-us/company-information/starbucks-company-
profile
Friedersdorf, C. (2015, March 18). Overcaffeinated Attacks on the Starbucks 'Race Together'
Campaign. Retrieved August 22, 2017, from
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/overcaffeinated-attacks-on-the-
starbucks-race-together-campaign/388072/
Grace, L. (2017, April 8). Brewing a strong social media presence: a Starbucks analysis.
Retrieved August 22, 2017, from https://medium.com/rta902/brewing-a-strong-social-
media-presence-a-starbucks-analysis-7a9f162db21f
Hajli, N. (2015). Handbook of Research on Integrating Social Media into Strategic
Marketing. United Kingdom : IGI Global.
Kell, J. (2017, March 30). Starbucks Faces Boycott After Pledging to Hire Refugees.
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refugee-hiring/
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starbucks-uses-pinterest-facebook-twitter-and-google/
MyStarbucksIdea.com. (2014). Celebrating 5 Years of Inspiring Ideas that Made Us Better .
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mobile-app-hacks-weak-passwords.html

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Shah, K. (2015, June 18). Why Starbucks' Race Together Campaign Failed . Retrieved
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race-together-campaign-failed
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Management. United Kingdom : Springer.
Your News. (2017, May 7). Uh Oh, the Starbucks App May Have a Security Weakness.
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