Marketing & Management: Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte

This report analyzes the current market position of Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte using various marketing models. It also discusses the communication strategies used by Starbucks to promote the product and suggests cross-functional activities to improve marketing positioning strategies.

RUNNING HEAD: MARKETING & MANAGEMENT 0
MARKETING &
MANAGEMENT
STARBUCKS- PUMPKIN SPICE LATTE

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Executive summary
Pumpkin spice latte is the coffee drink with the mix of spice essence, milk and sugar. Starbucks
offer Pumpkin spice latte at high price with high quality in comparison to their competitors. The
product is segmented among the age group of 25-40, it targets majorly to the youngsters and for
positioning the products Starbucks use Facebook, Instagram as well as Twitter. However, to
increase the sales company can use the price strategy. The company does advertising, sales
promotion, events for communicating the product to target customers. Starbucks use the practice
of cross functioning to work in effectively but due to several issues regarding the management of
cross functional team, company can used the activities of cross functional that is communication,
collaboration and coordination.

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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Current market position of Pumpkin Spice Latte.........................................................................................2
Map of brand positioning.........................................................................................................................2
Segmenting- targeting- positioning..........................................................................................................3
Segmentation.......................................................................................................................................4
Targeting.............................................................................................................................................4
Positioning...........................................................................................................................................4
Life cycle of product................................................................................................................................4
Issue & recommendations...........................................................................................................................5
Marketing communication strategies...........................................................................................................5
Marketing communication mix................................................................................................................5
Advertising..........................................................................................................................................5
Sales promotion...................................................................................................................................6
Events..................................................................................................................................................6
Public relations....................................................................................................................................6
Issue & recommendations...........................................................................................................................7
Cross functional activities...........................................................................................................................7
Source :- (Lee et al., 2016)..................................................................................................................8
Communication.......................................................................................................................................8
Collaboration...........................................................................................................................................9
Coordination............................................................................................................................................9
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................9
References.................................................................................................................................................10
Annexure...................................................................................................................................................13

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Introduction
Starbucks is a coffee company in an America, in the year 2019; the company operates over thirty
thousand locations worldwide. The company is in the industry of coffee shop, the products
offered by the company are coffee, tea, goods that is baked as well as the sandwiches. In 2018,
the revenue earned by the company is $24.71 billion. The locations of the company served both
drinks, that are hot and cold, coffee of whole-bean, caffe, and latte as well as the products of
Teavana (Anon., 2017). The Product selected for this report is Pumpkin Spice Latte, It is
considered the coffee drink with has the mixture of spice essence, milk which is steamed as well
as sugar. In the top, the product has the pie of pumpkin spice, cream that is whipped, After the
year 2015, the product contain some amount of pure pumpkin in the product. Sometimes the
drink is also served by the Starbucks based on the season (Koch, 2019). In some of the season
like Christmas, the company earns more profit like in the year 2013; Starbucks earns $80 million
in season’s (Butler, 2018). In this report, the current market position of Pumpkin spice latte is
discussed by adopting various marketing model like map of brand positioning, STP and product
life cycle. The communication strategy used by Starbucks in promoting the product is also
analyzed by using the marketing communication mix. Further the cross functional activities,
which Starbucks can adopt to make effective future strategies of marketing positioning for the
product.
Current market position of Pumpkin Spice Latte
The current position of pumpkin is examined through three marketing models:-
Map of brand positioning
The map of Product positioning map is considered the visual method, in which the company use
the mapping of perceptual mapping in displaying the situation of the product.

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High Quality
McCafe Caramel Pumpkin Spice latte
Dunkin’ Donuts’ pumpkin latte
The current position of Pumpkin spice latte describes by this diagram is high price and high
quality. The pumpkin spice latte is the high quality product of Starbucks, which is made up of
cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves because it is the only product among the competitors,
which offers the top with the whipped cream as well as cinnamon (Powell & Engelhardt, 2015).
The flavor of the product is balancing both, that is it is neither excessively sugary, as well nor too
harsh. Pumpkin spice latte made up of whole milk as well as the whipped cream. The prices kept
by the Starbucks of Pumpkin Spice latte is high as compared to that of the competitors which is
$5.25 which is higher in comparison with the Dunkin’ Donuts pumpkin latte that is $3.69 and
that of McCafe Caramel $3.39 (Kursuncu et al., 2018) .
Segmenting- targeting- positioning
The wide structure summarizes the procedure of the marketplace segmentation. In this
segmentation of market segmentation is a frame in which the set of purchaser in the marketplace
are divided according to the range of variables (Dolnicar et al., 2018).
Low Quality (Shirdastian et al.,
2017)
High price
Low
Price

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Segmentation- The segmentation describes the marketplace, which is segmented, Pumpkin spice
latte based on the segmentation of geographic, segmented in Chicago, Boston, San Francisco,
Portland, New York, Seattle, Dallas, Portland, the density of segmentation is urban. In the
demographic basis Pumpkin spice latte segmented Up to age of 25-40, Gender includes both the
male and female and the occupation includes all students, workers as well as professionals.
Further, according to segmentation of behavioral, the consumers are loyal because they enjoy
high quality coffee in the atmosphere of relaxation (Han et al., 2018).
Targeting- After the segmentation, the targeting engages choosing the profitable sections.
Starbucks for increasing the sale of Pumpkin spice latte target mainly to the young generation by
offering the top with the whipped cream as well as cinnamon, also by adding iced and offering
the pouches of pumpkin- spice flavored (Ghiass et al., 2016). The company also targeted the
business class because they like to work with the coffee in the relax environment by delivering
the high quality pumpkin spice latte, which is made up of complete milk.
Positioning-In positioning the motive of the company was to position itself in the customers
mind, for this the marketplace positioning is set for a product to get the clear, unique, and
popular position over the other substitute products sell by the competitors. Starbucks use
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for positioning Pumpkin Spice latte in the minds of the
consumers. The company also added an element of gaming by allowing the customers to unbolt
the drink at stores by ordering through the code, through this strategy in the last week of August
2018, the sale of the company was up to $7 million (Powell & Engelhardt, 2015). The beverage
sells in large places at all time obtainable in fifty countries and has own group of fan on
the Facebook which is more than 26,000.
Life cycle of product
The progress of the product is moves through the stages of sequence, which is starts from
beginning to expansion, maturity, as well as declining stage. This series is known as life cycle of
product (Strong et al., 2018). The current stage of pumpkin spice latte is maturity stage, that is
the sale is increasing but not at higher rate after last week of August in 2018, that is ending
quarter in 2019, the revenue earned by the company was only $6.823B and company also
announced to close up to 150 stores (Kursuncu et al., 2019)

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Issue & recommendations
Starbucks introduced a special pumpkin spice latte for the season of summer after the last week
of August; The Company predict that consumer order the product in the intense summer, but the
company does not earns sufficient outcomes and closed up to 50 stores in the year 2018 (Dalton
& Villagran, 2018). For this company can use the strategy of pricing, to keep the price of the
product low because the company charge higher price as compared to their competitors that is
$5.25 , because, many customers attracted towards the low price strategy. The Company can also
provide the options of winning the equipment of brewing which includes coffee strainer,
espresso device by giving the points to the consumers, whenever they drink coffee.
Marketing communication strategies
From the above findings, the strategies used by the Starbucks to communicate with the
consumers are described through Marketing Communication Mix (Kuttnig, 2015).
Marketing communication mix
Advertising
It is considered the non-person form of marketing communication to persuade as well as sell a
product. It is communicated by using various sources of mass media, which includes radio,
television, publications, newspaper, advertising outdoor, mailing directly, and by using search
engine like social media, messages (Qian et al., 2018). The product of the Starbucks that is
pumpkin spice latte currently has Starbucks’ specialty latte has turn out to be most accepted
as well as developed product which hold its own Tumblr, Facebook some other are
Instagram and Twitter. To target the youngster and connecting the group, the creative and
innovative posts are marked to the youngster, who is considered the social media
dominators. Posts can be pictures, gifs and any topic, which is trending; currently the
company also brings the “real PSL” to exist on the social media, so that they can join
with larger community and thus can add more supporters as well as followers. Through
the campaign recently, the product increases the followers, which are 18,000 on the
Instagram and 10,000 on twitter (Goutte et al., 2019). Further Starbucks also launched a
bot of Facebook messenger for pumpkin spice latte, in which people can ask various
questions and inquire regarding the drink.

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Sales promotion
Sales promotion use both the media as well as the non-media communications regarding
marketing for communicating about the product for a prearranged, inadequate time to enhance
the demand of the consumer, encourage the demand of the market demand as well as develop the
availability of the product. Starbucks locate the staff members, which are not less than three
members in their locations; they call the consumers and inquire them about the new ingredients
used in the product as well as about the offers. Starbucks make sure that the taste of pumpkin
spice latte remains similar in all at place, but if the customers are not happy with the buying, the
company provides the vouchers, which is free of cost for the next call, as well as provide a new
drink to the customers, which is free of cost. Starbucks use the technique of Push Promotions
with the product of pumpkin spice latte and provides various offers to the customer that is
coupons, premiums. However, the company offers sample of pumpkin spice latte to the
consumers. The company offered the muffins as well as cakes, when they are serving the drink in
season like Christmas, Halloween. In a note of the employees of Starbucks employees, the
company provided makes offer to support the public as well as to help and connect with the
customers (Jensen & Sommer, 2017).
Events
The management of the event is considering the strategy of marketing as well as the tool of the
communication for the companies of every size. However starting from launching the product to
the conferences, various companies make the events of promotional to support and communicate
with all the customers, clients. Starbucks squad, which is GiveGood, shares the cards of the
pumpkin spice latte in the holiday event all over the US. The squad also distributes the cards,
which is free of cost to the person, who came for attending the event of the Christmas
(Vahlensieck et al., 2015).
Public relations
Public relations are the planned process of communication, which mutually construct the
favorable relationship among companies with their targeted publics. The relation of the public
can further also be defines as the approach of communication management among and
organization with the public. Starbucks takes up the project of planting the flower. The activities
support the Starbuck to join all the members of the communities of their families and offer the

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member to plant the flower. Through this the relationship between the Starbucks and public
increases, in this company provides the complete information about the quality, prices to the
public, this helps the company to communicate personally with the consumers. Starbucks also
offer a unique code on the Facebook, through which people can buy the drink of Pumpkin Spice
latte before the due date. The company also makes better relations with the public by regularly
posting the images, gifs that provides the information about the product as well as support
public. The company also has own page in Instagram, facebook, Twitter (Rustanti et al., 2015).
Issue & recommendations
Starbucks for done excessive marketing to communicate about the Pumpkin spice latte among
the customers, but the company mainly targeted the youngster. For this it focuses mainly on
advertising in social media, however not many initiatives are taken to develop the public
relations to target the other group, this is also the reason to decrease in sale in the year 2019. To
develop the relations with the public, the company can target women by delivering the brochures
as well as catalogues at home about Pumpkin spice latte with offers ad discounts. This will help
the company in increasing sales.
Cross functional activities
Starbucks use the practice of cross functioning to work in more effective manner or to avoid the
issues by getting the suggestions from various experts and finally to get the efficient decision.
But the company is facing challenge in management of the cross function because the teams
from the different areas of function working jointly in making the marketing positioning strategy
to promote the product, which is Pumpkin Spice latte. It is due to lack of communication and
corporation among the experts, because the teams are from the departments of human resource,
marketing as well as finance (Barry et al., 2017).
To overcome this problem the company can use the activities of cross functional to make the
effective marketing positioning strategies for Pumpkin spice latte-

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Source :- (Lee et al., 2016)
Communication
Starbucks can maintain the approach of communication among the group of members, so that
they become efficient in talking, give suggestions and support each other in framing the
strategies for the Pumpkin spice latte in marketing positioning. To increase the communication
among the team members company can assemble the correct team which have the necessary
skills of providing innovative ideas about marketing the about. The company can take the help
by the firm of Third- party in creating the teams. The company can also develop the agreement
of service level for creating the efficient process of communication, schedule meeting,
presentations, this help the company in making effective future marketing positioning strategies
for Pumpkin spice latte because the product has superior image in the eyes of the customers.

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Collaboration
It means to work jointly in the group, and they require arranged technique as well as tools which
is common for all the team members to make the future marketing positioning strategies for the
Pumpkin spice latte, company has to improve the cross- functional collaboration. For this
company can implement the systems of collaborative which is Starbucks can use the cloud-
based, because it can be accessed across devices, place and the time. The company hires the
person for the teams, which has collaborative mindset, this help the company make the strategies
for pumpkin spice latte without conflicting by adopting the approach of harmony among the
team members.
Coordination
In this team wants the visibility on the progress of each other’s as well as for the direction, for
this Starbucks can stored and organized the information in proper manner and in the particular
location about the current position and target customer, segmentation about the pumpkin spice
latte. This provides the effective coordination because the information does not overlap. The
company can also monitor the results and outcomes received by adopting the strategy, through
this Starbucks can makes changes according to the requirements. The company can also used the
software of Jira and Trello , this help the company in easily manage the work and also develop
coordination among the members.
Conclusion
From the above, it concludes that Pumpkin Spice Latte is the coffee with is made with the
mixture of milk, essence of spice and sugar and top with the pie of pumpkin spice as well as
cream that is whipped. It shows that to find the current position the map of brand positioning,
STP and profit cycle is used which shows that product is in the stage of maturity, Targets mainly
to the youngster as well as business class people, and provide the high quality but the price of the
product is higher as compared to competitors. In this issue is also analyzed and suggestion is
provided to adopt the pricing strategy. It is also conclude that the company used the, marketing
communication mix to communicate the product with the target consumers, In this issue analyze
that company does not make public relations with the other group and suggested to target women

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and offer brochures. At last, three C’s framework is suggested to implement to achieve the future
positioning strategies.
References

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Anon., 2017. Starbucks. [Online]
(https://investor.starbucks.com/financial-data/annual-reports/default.aspx) [Accessed 31 July
2017].
Barry, O. et al., 2017. Relative functional and optical absorption cross-sections of PSII and other
photosynthetic parameters monitored in situ, at a distance with a time resolution of a few
seconds, using a prototype light induced fluorescence transient (LIFT) device. Functional Plant
Biology, 44(10).
Butler, L., 2018. Coffee's Dark Secrets: Linguistic Variation in Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts.
Lingua Frankly, 4.
Dalton, S. & Villagran, M., 2018. Minimizing and addressing implicit bias in the workplace. Be
proactive, part one. College & Research Libraries News, 79(9).
Dolnicar, S., Grün, B. & Leisch, F., 2018. Market Segmentation Analysis: Understanding It,
Doing It, and Making It Useful. Germany: Springer.
Ghiass, M., Zimbra, D. & Lee, S., 2016. Targeted Twitter Sentiment Analysis for Brands Using
Supervised Feature Engineering and the Dynamic Architecture for Artificial Neural Networks.
Journal of Management Information Systems, 33(4).
Goutte, S. et al., 2019. hidden patterns in pumpkin toadlets. Intense bone fluorescence reveals
hidden patterns in pumpkin toadlets, 9(1).
Han, H. et al., 2018. Drivers of brand loyalty in the chain coffee shop industry. International
Journal of Hospitality Management, 72.
Jensen, J.D. & Sommer, I.S., 2017. Reducing calorie sales from supermarkets – ‘silent’
reformulation of retailer-brand food products. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and
Physical Activityvolume , 14(104).
Koch, L., 2019. Starbucks Espresso Drinks: More Than the Average Cup of Joe. Journal of
Renal Nutrition, 29(1).

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Kursuncu, U. et al., 2018. Predictive Analysis on Twitter: Techniques and Applications. In
Emerging Research Challenges and Opportunities in Computational Social Network Analysis
and Mining, pp.67-104.
Kursuncu, U. et al., 2019. Predictive Analysis on Twitter: Techniques and Applications. In
Emerging Research Challenges and Opportunities in Computational Social Network Analysis
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Kuttnig, C., 2015. International Online Marketing Communication strategies of Global Players
A Linguistic Study with Special Reference to T-Mobile. Germany: GRIN Verlag.
Lee, E.-H., Lee, Y.W. & Moon, S.H., 2016. A structural equation model linking health literacy
to self-efficacy, self-care activities, and health-related quality of life in patients with type 2
diabetes. Asian nursing research, 10(1).
Powell, L.J. & Engelhardt, E.S.D., 2015. The Perilous Whiteness of Pumpkins. GeoHumanities,
1(2).
Powell, L.J. & Engelhardt, E.S., 2015. The Perilous Whiteness of Pumpkins. GeoHumanities, 2,
p.1.
Qian, K., Guo, H., Chen, G. & Chen, G., 2018. modified carbon dots in pumpkin seedlings.
Scientific reports, 8(1).
Rustanti, N., Murwani, R. & Anwar, S., 2015. Combined inorganic iron (FeSO4) and steamed
pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata) fortification in fresh noodles can increase hemoglobin levels in
iron deficient mice. Pakistan Journal of Nutrition, 14(6).
Shirdastian, H., Richard, M.O. & Laroche, M., 2017. Using big data analytics to study brand
authenticity sentiments. International Journal of Information Management..
Strong, C., Kresojevic, S. & Viki, T., 2018. The Lean Product Lifecycle: How to Make Products
People Want. London: Pearson UK.
Vahlensieck, W. et al., 2015. Effects of Pumpkin Seed in Men with LowerUrinary Tract
Symptoms due to Benign Prostatic Urinary Tract Symptoms due to Benign Prostatic Placebo-

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Controlled GRANU Study. Urologia internationalis, 94(3).

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Annexure
3-Aug-19 8-Aug-19 24-Aug-19 28-Aug-19 7-Sep-19
29-Jul-19 4-Aug-19 8-Aug-19 24-Aug-19 28-Aug-19
Gather information Preparation of
mapping STP Life cycle of product Marketing
communication mix
5 4
16
4
10
Duration
Duration
From the above it finds that, to gather the information about the pumpkin spice latte the time
period taken as 29-july- 2019 till the 3-Aug 2019, that is 5 days, in this information is collected
about the mixture of ingredients used Starbucks to make the product. To know how the products
made. To understand about the current position in this study, the three models is undertaken
which includes map of brand positioning to understand this and data collection took 4 days,
through this model the main understanding was to understand about the quality and price of the
Pumpkin spice latte. The other model is STP, for gathering information about the segmentation,
target audience as well as the positioning more time is consumed that is 16 days, because it
considered difficult to understand the segmented areas as well as to whom the company is, focus
more. This information is undertaken, by understanding the strategies adopted by the Starbucks

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and targeted more, the data is collected to know the stage of the product that is at which stage is
currently the product. Further to gathered the information about the marketing communication
strategy used by the company, and to know is it working as well as for whom the activities is
done more it took 10 days. Therefore while conducting this study, lots of information is taken
about the Pumpkin spice latte.