Last week Starbucks revealed they would be increasing their ad-spend with a new ‘emotional’ campaign, to become “more proactive in telling our story”.
The multi-million-pound campaign will span cinema, print and digital, with a particular emphasis on Facebook.
This is really interesting news to us as Starbucks is a great example of an “experience-based” company that has built a brand by emotionally engaging its consumers – meaning they have had limited ad-spend until now.
Coffee aficionados may well be up in arms about this statement, but when it comes down to it, coffee beans are essentially the same wherever you go. At a fundamental level, a lot of coffee shops sell the same products for a consistently high price, but people don’t mind paying the huge markup on their coffee because they are paying for the whole coffee shop experience.
Appealing to people’s emotions is key for a brand like Starbucks who have built an empire on the experience they give people, meaning this particular emotive advertising move makes sense.