The new Starbucks marketing strategy

 

To promote its numerous drink combinations, Starbucks has found a new idea, which can really seduce its customers and obviously potential customers too. What is it? Starbucks is now oferring people to design their own branded T-shirts bearing their favorite drinks. At Starbucks.com, visitors can select the drink elements, and choose icons from fashion designer Mychael Knight of “Project Runway” fame to finish off the design. If you are curious, I advise you to go on www.mystarbuckstshirt.com !

Starbucks VS Costa

 

Have you already drunk one of the 5000 possible drink combinations at Starbucks?Starbucks is a coffee bar, a kind of „Mac Do of coffee“. This famous US cofee brand owns stores all over the world and opened its first store in France in January 2004 in Paris.           

Recently Starbucks has encountered a stong rival in expanding its China business. This rival is Costa, a brand name of coffee founded by two Italian brothers Sergio Costa and Bruno Costa in London in 1971. Costa opened its first store in China in Shanghai in December 2006 and want to sweep across China.What is different from Starbucks’ American characteristics is that Costa will bring into China the Italian noble flavor combined with Chinese local preferences.

Currently Costa has opened 515 stores in Britain and will expand to Japan and South Korea later in 2007. Therefore we can forecast that Costa and Starbucks will compete in China and Asia-Pacific Region with utmost efforts.

How was coffee born?

 

According to legend, beans (of coffee) were first observed by an astute shepherd in eastern Ethiopia. He noticed that the sheeps eating the berries of certain shrubs (little trees) were more playful, energetic and agitated. Eventually, he tasted some of berries and felt an euphoria never experienced before. Thus was coffee born!

Then, how coffee evolded in the world?

First of all people would eat fresh “berries” to experience the affect of caffeine. Then the shrub was brought over the Red Sea to Yemen in 525 AD (Anno Domini), where it grew on certain locations with sufficient water. At first, coffee beans were used as medication, and for religious purposes by priests. And today, coffee is become one of the most popular non-alcoholic beverages of the world.

Furthermore the word coffee is derived from Arabic qahwa.