It’s astounding that when Starbucks asked on Facebook “How long is your drink order?” they had nearly 2,000 answers per hour for the first 5 hours, and about the same number of “Likes”. It only represents about 0.1% of their amazing fan base of 12 million on Facebook, but even so what a instant and huge resource for research.
You’d have to say (as we have been saying for a while) that the days of most “market research” groups are severely numbered. It’s a bit like the disruptive shift of cloud into the computing landscape, social media is a disruptive shift for market research. It has to be this way – bad news for all but the most agile MR firms – because while Starbucks has a relationship with its customers through social media any marketing agency can only have a transaction.
I don’t know what Starbucks would make out of the answers, perhaps some ideas of improving service or product selection. Or perhaps they just did it for fun to engage with their fan base.
I’m a bit dull, I just order a “latte”, others ordered ” double chocolate chip mocha frappucino, double blended.. EXTRA chocolate!”,”A grande, soy, decaf, sugar-free vanilla, no-foam latte”, “venti caramel frap with mocha and whip cream and extra extra caramel on top and on the bottom and all over”, “White chocolate carmel frappachino extra shot with whip cream”… !!!
While I was skimming the comments a few impressions formed in my mind. The first was people don’t go to Starbucks for coffee!! The second, and a powerful image, was that Starbucks is one big diabetes-generating machine relentlessly doling out sugar and calories. And the third, a peripheral one, is that while working in a good coffee shop would be something that I would do if needed, I certainly wouldn’t want to work at Starbucks, because of the previous point.
What impressions come to you when you read the comments?
What do you think people go to Starbucks for if it is not the coffee?