Starbucks Brand Strategy Report: Analysis for BK301 Marketing Course

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Starbucks' brand strategy, examining various components such as brand equity, brand assets, and brand performance. The report delves into the emotional and symbolic aspects of the Starbucks brand, exploring how the company creates emotional connections with consumers and utilizes its logo and cultural meaning to build a strong brand identity. Furthermore, it analyzes Starbucks' brand communication strategies, including advertising and social media campaigns, and evaluates the company's brand performance in the global market. The report concludes that Starbucks' effective brand strategy, including its unique customer experience and focus on innovation, has been instrumental in its success. The report is a valuable resource for students studying marketing and brand management, offering insights into the strategies employed by one of the world's most recognizable brands.

Brand Strategy

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Executive Summary
The main purpose of this report is to enhance the learning the concept of brand
strategy of the organisation. In this report, Starbucks has been taken into consideration to
analyse the business strategy. Business strategy of the company is classified in the different
components such as brand equity, brand assets, brand performance. Symbols and emotions
are also discussed in order to analyse the effective business strategy. Starbucks have the
effective business strategy in order to achieve the success.

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Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................3
Discussion.............................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................7
References.............................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Brand strategy is a plan that helps to achieve the long-term goals with the successful
growth of brand. The different component of the company helps to make it identifiable. A
well-executed brand strategy of the organisation affects all factors of a business such as
consumer emotions, needs and competitive environment of the market. Brand strategy
reflects about the product, logo, website and the name. The stuff that feels intangible but it’s
develop the separate identity and name of the brand. There are different components of a
comprehensive branding strategy which states the meaning, emotions, flexibility,
consistency, cultural, etc (Neuvonen, 2016). Different company have different identity and
business strategy which helps to gain the high growth in the market. The main objective of
this report is to learn the concept of the brand strategy of the organisation. In this report,
Starbucks has been taken into consideration in order to analyse the brand strategy. Starbucks
is a coffee company of America which was founded in Seattle, Washington in the year 1971.
It is recognised as the main representative of the coffee brand which delivers the coffee
serving venues. The quality, customer experience and the taste of the company is popular in
the market (Starbucks, 2017).
In this report, the different components of brand strategy of Starbucks will be
discussed. The mainly focuses on the emotions, symbolic, cultural, brand equity, brand
communication, brand Performance will be analysed.
Discussion
Emotions and Brands
Starbucks use the emotional branding technique to create the emotional relation with
the society. It is observed that the best brands are those that create something for the benefit

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for consumers as per the needs and requirements or beyond their requirements. Starbucks is
the brand that develops something that people did not know their own needs. The marketing
team of the company creates the environment due to which people are excited to taste it. It
observed that there are millions of coffee shops in the different countries before launching the
Starbucks coffee. But the taste offers by the company is always give the best experience to
consumers. The company provides the coffee with the sweet emotions. It creates the different
emotions for the different people such as it reminds the taste of home coffee for whom that
live far from their house. The people show their emotions in the different form such as trust,
joy, surprise, happiness towards the coffee.
(Source: Fast Company, 2017)
Symbolic Meaning of Brands
The logo of Starbucks contains the siren in centre of the circle. This picture was
contained from the old marine books as a logo. The picture of siren is the first rendition of the
company logo. As the time passage, the company change the logo style over the years but the
two tailed siren always at centre stage.

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Siren is a choice which states the happiness to its unflattering parallels. It is creature
that describe as an irresistibility sweet voice because she stand unbound, inviting all of us in
to explore, sharing our stories and to connect with each other. This creature always inspires
the organisation and always tries to pushing the Starbucks ahead (Starbucks, 2017).
(Source: Starbucks, 2017)
Cultural Meaning of Brands
Starbucks shows at the best global branks rankings and it clearly commonality
between the top ones. It is essential for a brand to develop from day one that evolves along
with the every company. The point of distinction of Starbucks can never be copied or
measured by the other company. The organisation remarked as the top 100 currently best
global brands and it was able to turn an ordinary products into an extraordinary experience to
the customers. Starbucks culture worked as a means to positively change communities where
the company directly or indirectly set its feet in. the company is able to achieve all of the
fundamental things that combine to form a culture belief, customs and artefacts. The belief of
the company is to nurture the spirit of a human. The company translate their belief into daily
actions which is considered as the brand custom. The two main custom represent by the
company is the regularity in the services provided and the second is positively environment

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that surprising the customer and provide the good experience. Artifacts of the company are its
cup in which it serves the coffee. The company come up with the new branded containers that
can be carrying around in the different locations such as universities, malls, offices, TV and
many others (Barbosa, 2015).
Brand Equity
Brand Equity refers the value of the organisation that generates from its delivering its
services with its name when it compared to generic equivalent. The brand equity of the
company is classified in the different terms such as brand awareness, brand assets, brand
associations, brand loyalty, and brand elements. The company comes in the partnership with
the Apple to make coffee shop experience more entertaining. The marketing campaign and
promotion activities of Starbucks help to aware the consumers towards its services. Brand
assets of Starbucks is its services which is provided by the company to its consumers such as
sandwiches, cakes, salads, beverages, teas and many other items. Brand elements of the
company are its logo which always catches the attention of large number of people. Brand
loyalty of the consumers is the biggest coffee chain as it serves original ingredients at an
affordable cost by keeping its health and cost conscious consumers in mind. Brand
association states the connection with the community by offering the different type of
services to its consumers. Starbucks is one of the main dealers of fair trade certified coffee.
The purpose of this movement is to betterment of farmers and their farms (Sasmita, & Mohd
Suki, 2015).
Brand Communication
Brand communication strategy of the company applies through publicity, advertising,
launch offers and by using the social media. The first campaign title of the company is “meet
me at Starbucks”. These are the most important tools of the company which is used to get

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close to the customer with its services. The communication strategy of the company builds
the existence in the market place. The reason behind the effectiveness of brand
communication strategy of the company is web is the content hub, makes it easy to share
content, content is integrated across the channels, consistent branding, and engage consumers
(Burmann, Riley, Halaszovich, & Schade, 2017).
Brand Performance
The expansion of business at the global level is rapid and strategic. It is the number
one preference of consumers in the coffee shops. It is recognise as the representative of
second wave coffee. The approach of the company is to gather the customer information
which is quite unique and different as compared to organisations at the global level (Martin
Roll, 2017). The company mainly focuses on to inspires and nature the human spirit – one
cup, one person and one neighbourhood at a time. Starbucks is an organisation that has a
good management in terms of innovation. The timeline is the reasons of achieving the
success by the organisation because it helps to generate the consistency at high levels of same
store sales (Steenkamp, 2017).
Conclusion
At the end, it is concluded that the Starbucks adopts the high brand strategy in order
to achieve the success in the market. The coffee services provided by the company create the
different entity due to its excellent taste. Brand strategy of the company is classifies in the
different components such as brand equity, brand communication and many others. In this
report, the analysis is made on the brand communication, brand performance, brand equity,
Cultural Meaning of Brands, and emotions created by the company. As per the analysis, it
states that the company culture, logo attracts the consumers towards the services of

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Starbucks. Brand strategy of the company is considered as the effective as compare to the
other coffee shop. The company gain long term advantage due to its effective brand strategy.

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References
Barbosa, H. (2015) Starbucks: When Brand Equals Culture, The Extraordinary Happens.
Retrieved from:
https://www.brandsforbreakfast.com/single-post/2015/01/28/STARBUCKS-WHEN-
BRAND-EQUALS-CULTURE-THE-EXTRAORDINARY-HAPPENS
Burmann, C., Riley, N. M., Halaszovich, T., & Schade, M. (2017). The Foundations of
Identity-Based Brand Management. In Identity-Based Brand Management (pp. 1-16).
Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden.
Fast Company. (2017). How Starbucks Transformed Coffee From A Commodity Into A $4
Splurge. Retrieved from: https://www.fastcompany.com/1777409/how-starbucks-
transformed-coffee-commodity-4-splurge
Martin Roll. (2017). The Secret to Starbucks’ Brand Success. Retrieved from:
https://martinroll.com/resources/articles/strategy/secret-starbucks-brand-success/
Neuvonen, H. (2016). Toward a model of brand strategy adoption. Journal of Brand
Management, 23(2), 197-215.
Pappu, R. and Christodoulides, G., 2017. Defining, measuring and managing brand equity.
The Journal of Product and Brand Management, 26(5), pp.433-434.
Sasmita, J., & Mohd Suki, N. (2015). Young consumers’ insights on brand equity: Effects of
brand association, brand loyalty, brand awareness, and brand image. International
Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 43(3), 276-292.
Starbucks. (2017). About Us. Retrieved from: http://www.starbucks.in/about-us
Steenkamp, J. B. (2017). Global brand strategy: World-wise marketing in the age of
branding. Springer.