For the record, I am not a fan of Starbucks. Never really have been, and probably never will be. I’ve always kind of thought Starbucks was too much of a bastion for the snooty liberal elitist types, and therefore have not been too sad to see the hundreds of stores closing across the country. The only twinge of pain I’ve felt is for the capitalist aspects of it, like the jobs Starbucks creates, for example. And because I’m not a Starbucks connoisseur, I didn’t know that apparently they’ve insulted their loyal fan base… by creating instant coffee.

Elana Centor from Blogher explains:

With customers who adored it with cult-like devotion, Starbucks thrived in a time when excess was not only excessive, it was also fun. But, like the 30-year -old who gets on the scale and discovers she can no longer eat a Big Mac and fries without consequences (okay that happened to me at 14), indulging in Starbucks is quickly beginning to feel like an activity from our lost youth. That feeling is not good for business.

Remember when we stood in line for 15 minutes every morning to get a no fat venti cappuccino with a hint of vanilla? Remember when spending 30-40 dollars a week for coffee didn’t seem like a big deal? Ah, those were the days.

It’s not just that the company grew too fast and now has to contract.The problem for Starbucks is much more fundamental. For many, Starbuck’s entire brand promise feels out-of-sync with today’s more grownup mindset.

If you had purchased Starbucks Stock on December 1,2004 you would have
paid $62.36. On Friday, it closed at $9.15 and the good folks at Blogging Stocks say “Anything more than $5 per share is too much to pay.”

… Which brings us to Starbucks solution to the indulgence/austerity dilemma. About the time my plane lands in Chicago’s Midway Airport Tuesday morning, the Starbucks Coffee shops in Chicago(and Seattle)will exclusively be introducing the company’s latest product – not a $4 00 latte,cappuccino or frappuccino concoction, but what can only be described as the Anti-Starbucks — a one buck packet of instant coffee named Via.

This is not instant coffee as you know it.
This is rich, flavorful Starbucks® coffee in an instant.

The announcement, a couple of weeks ago, that Starbucks was launching a line of instant coffee, was met with criticism and some sadness for a iconoclastic company that many see as dying a slow and painful death.

Since apparently I do not understand why this is such a bad thing, I’ll just let the Starbucks loyalists explain it.

First, the Huffpo:

Starbucks built its enviable and omnipresent brand on two things: the quality of their coffees (which I’ve always found a bit bitter) and the experience the cafes offer. Their commitment to fair trade with coffee growers plays a role as well. They have great brand equity. Price is their only downfall, but you are paying to nurse a beverage for hours if you like. It’s the business model that European cafés are based on.

Of course, many people do not actually consume their Starbucks beverage in store, though they do get some of the ambiance while waiting on the 8:50 am twenty-deep line for their skinny caramel macchiato (extra hot). And there are Starbucks brand extensions already (ice-cream, Frappucinos) that are available in grocery stores and consumed in-home. So the instant coffee packets they are going to sell in-store — and presumably their plan is to be in supermarkets everywhere — are not their first foray away from the “experience.”

But fresh brewed, ground-from-beans-that-very-day-coffee is their stock in trade. They run a great risk of diminishing their brand by offering what is in effect the antithesis of their core product. Their assertion that people can’t tell the difference between the two doesn’t matter.
Instant coffee has a bad reputation in the United States. Remember Mom with watery Sanka (when she wasn’t revving up on Tab)?

I don’t know anyone who drinks instant coffee here. So Starbuck’s really big task is to change US consumer perception of an entire product category. Their competitors, who already have real estate on supermarket shelves across the nation, will be very thankful if Starbucks increases the overall size of the market, and on Starbuck’s dime. It remains to be seen if the chain will grab shelf space and market share, assuming that is their plan. I hope they’ve got a lot of marketing money behind this. They’ll need it.

Certainly, they really have their eye on international markets. In the UK, for example, instant coffee has no stigma and makes up more than 80% of the coffee drunk at home. After turning my nose up at it when I first moved there, I became a convert. But I wouldn’t be content with a measly pre-measured Starbucks packet — I want a jar where I can jolt myself with three tablespoons. The English will expect to be able to buy this in jars.

There are Starbucks beverages you can’t get in the UK because there is a stigma attached (like my favorite, iced venti-no water- light ice-unshaken-unsweetened green iced tea). So there’s no reason they have to launch instant coffee in the US. I think they would’ve been safer launching abroad first. Or only. Time will tell. I’m sure there are great marketing minds at Starbucks who’ve dealt with all these issues. But I’ll bet there were dissenters as well.

Are you detecting any snootiness yet?

Another blog compares this move to Coca-Cola’s disastrous “New Coke” experiment:

Are they tossing authenticity right out the window just like Coca Cola tried to do to its much loved ‘classic’ version?
I may be all wrong. After all, the folks at Starbucks have undoubtedly spent a bazillion dollars in research to show that there is a need for a new kind of instant coffee. I simply have a gut reaction that their new Via Ready Brew, misses on three counts:

Starbucks is all about freshly brewed, freshly ground coffee served up in an authentic Starbucks environment. Instant coffee, by any other name, is a throwback to a time when we needed a very low-cost solution to having a single cup at home or in the office.

Starbucks has a hard won image as an environmentally sensitive company that understands issues of sustainability and conservation. How do individually plastic wrapped portions of instant coffee square with that company image? How many of those plastic wrappers will wind up in landfills around the US?

Starbucks is already bucking a new cost-conscious trend among American consumers. Now are they are asking us to shell out 80 cents for a cup of instant coffee(if you buy the 12 pack). Of course, that’s cheaper than what we would pay for a small cup in a Starbucks retail store. But it’s 10 times more expensive than if we brew Starbucks coffee at home from a bag we can buy at the supermarket.

… Lots of marketing gurus have suggested that Starbucks got way ahead of itself by overexpanding beyond any conceivable level of demand. That may be true, but there are still millions of Starbucks fanatics for whom a day without Starbucks is like a day without sunshine.

However, the Starbucks brand promise contains many elements none of which involve expensive and environmentally incorrect individual packets of instant coffee. Oops, sorry, Via Ready Brew.

But perhaps none were more critical than the commenters over at the Starbucks Gossip page:

I want to cry now.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse that Pike Place Roast…

Jesus Christ. Are they serious? This is sad. Very sad. Ugh.

I’m waiting for the S.M.R.E.s

Starbucks
Meals
Ready
to
Eat

The news of Via has just made me glad I quit after more than a decade with Starbucks this last year. I once was in Howard’s office to introduce a new RMT to Howard and he spoke of losing the Safeco sponsorship to Tully’s. Howard said they were greedy and was clearly angry about losing the advertising, etc… It’s so sad that he is choosing greed in the marketplace and trying to be everything for all consumers. What happened to Starbucks being only quality and the customers would decide it’s worth the money for a great product?

Okay, company over. Everyone go home…

I am so glad I am no longer with Starbucks and, as of last week, out of the stock. Even if this announcement drives the shares up, I want nothing to do with this company.

Starbucks, I have no words left for you. I bet the innovative, romantic, original Italian cafe’s where young Schultzy got the idea for ‘bux never packaged nor sold instant coffee. Consider this my two weeks.

The sneering hatred towards the new Starbucks instant coffee coming from the Starbucks aficionados makes me laugh. What’s especially funny about it is that, to me, it seems to show how much of a difference there is between normal, adult, grown-up people (who have jobs and lives and families) and Starbucks frequenters who find it insulting to actually — GASP! — drink instant coffee.

See, for many of us normal people, instant coffee is an everyday thing. Maxwell House, Folger’s… these coffee brands are just as much of a household name as Starbucks is. Most people don’t consider drinking instant coffee beneath them. They also don’t have the time or the money to be sitting around in Starbucks for hours on end drinking a $9 small coffee. This is why whenever you walk into Starbucks, you don’t often see businesspeople over the age of 35 lounging around in the cafe.

It’s also why Starbucks fans are so crushed. The Starbucks brand is about the experience of the cafe, they proselytize. And, as the Huffpo writer says, no one drinks instant coffee. Instant coffee is beneath these people — as one commenter put it, it’s OK for “climbers and the military”, but NOT for Starbucks drinkers.

This is, in a way, an end to part of the Starbucks brand. No longer is Starbucks only for snooty, alternative-style elitists. Now it’s available for everyone, and might even be sold in — OH NO! — grocery stores. The new Via Instant Coffee is taking away the feelings of superiority that these Starbucks drinkers are used to enjoying, and that’s what they’re really pissed about.

The fact that Starbucks is failing so much, and has had to resort to these means, is telling in and of itself. America loved the idea of Starbucks initially. But on the whole, Americans have moved past it. The novelty wore off, and only the hardcore enthusiasts continue to frequent Starbucks with the same kind of loyalty. So is changing their brand really a bad idea?