Comments on: Starbucks goes Hollywood

By: cynthia bates

cynthia bates — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 15:37:29 +0000

In 1989 urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg published
“The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee shops, Bookstores ,Bars, Hair Salons (there you go, Big Hair), and other Hangouts in the Heart of a Community.”
What he called “the core settings of informal public life”, and they had a consistent set of characteristics: neuttral ground, accomodating & accessible, unmpretentious, full of lively conversation, a social leveler,with a group of “regulars” and a kind of home away from home.

Whether today’s virtual communities are true Third Places is debatable.

He was very pre-Starbucks and referenced the famous coffee houses of London and Vienna wih their political and intellectual ferment.

“the great good place” is the title of a work of the master himself, Henry James

By: Constantinos

Constantinos — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 11:30:16 +0000

In my opinion, the success of this will hinge very much on the way that it is executed at Starbucks. This includes everything from the movies that are selected and sold to the kinds of kiosks and displays that will be used. If Starbucks sticks to small, interesting independent films, and does it in a way that is, for lack of a better word, tasteful, they stand a much better chance of succeeding (financially, as well as enhancing the cultural experience). With music, they have struck a good balance between well-known acts and promote smaller, relatively unknown artists (like Raul Midon).
It’s tempting to think of films/Hollywood as nosier, and even crass in way in this environment, but if they stick to smaller flicks, I think they can avoid being thought of as sell-outs.

By: David Sucher

David Sucher — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 23:09:26 +0000

1. I find it unlikely that the “third place” aspect of Starbucks was accidental e.g. just filling up some unused space in a store. My own theory is that Starbucks executives observed (as customers as well as competitors) some extremely popular and profitable bakery/coffee houses in Seattle in the early 1990′s, as well as of course the many European coffee houses, and connected the dots i.e. saw that seating in a Starbucks would increase sales.

2. The term “third place” was first set forth by an anthropologist in Florida, Ray Oldenburg.
http://user.gru.net/domz/third.htm
We should give Howard Schultz a lot of credit but not for that one.

By: Read/WriteWeb

Read/WriteWeb — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 04:02:52 +0000

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Aggregating and filtering the latest Web Tech and Media news, so you don’t have to! This is a 5 or 6 day a week feature and feel free to email me interesting links for inclusion: readwriteweb AT gmail.com. – PodTech…

By: Grant

Grant — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 09:37:22 +0000

Eric, nice comment, thanks, when to we begin to see brand building as one of the processes by which we return value to shareholders, instead of something “long term” and somehow optional? Thanks, Grant

Chuck, nice point, the music CD sales went better than I expected and it bodes well. For me, somehow, movies are more particular than music…perhaps because music can always be “just what happens to be playing” whereas a movie choice is more deliberate and therefore defining. Thanks. Grant

Daniel, very interesting, perhaps the third space did happen be accident, with the Seattle trend running like a wave through the country filling up the “coffee houses” Starbucks just happen to have created. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. Talk about working the trend. But I think the term “third space” came from the CEO and that suggests that they had a deliberate idea here. Thanks, Grant

Matt, brilliant, you make the argument better than I did, a failed movie will cost them in a way that a failed album does not, and I think this is back to that “just happens to be playing thing” whereas movies are more totemic, more definitional. Thanks, Grant

Peter, this is really good (characteristically so), this is the cultural root of the inclination to meddle with perfection, there are careers to be made, newly minted MBAs have to make their mark, and so on. And in this view there is something exploitative about certain employees. They use the host for their own purposes. But, as you say, all of this is consistent with a larger cultural inclination, and we do not object. Thanks, Grant

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 04:14:44 +0000

I wonder if part of the problem is that most of us, particularly us westerners, lack the courage to do nothing. Marketing and more senior managers feel they have to always be doing something, taking initiatives, creating partnerships, making changes, and so on, regardless of whether the actions concerned are beneficial (one can always make a good case for an action one has already chosen), or whether “leaving well enough alone” would be the wisest course.

I am reminded of the Managerial Syllogism which a client once shared with me:

1. The situation in the company is serious and so we must do something.
2. X is something.
3. So, let’s do X.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 04:09:54 +0000

Integrating music sales is very different than doing cross-promotion with Hollywood. Music can be made part of the Starbucks brand image with relatively little difficulty or disconnect, because Starbucks can control the selection and aggregation in such a way as to prevent excessive interference with their existing brand. But inviting Hollywood into the game means that the Starbucks brand must necessarily become repeatedly subservient to a succession of doomed mini-brands.

The moment Starbucks loses that unique brand identity, market share will begin to collapse, as millions of people spontaneously wake up to the fact that they’re paying extortionate prices for _bad_ coffee.

They’re selling their soul, and they haven’t even negotiated favorable terms.

By: Daniel Rosenblatt

Daniel Rosenblatt — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 01:41:50 +0000

The first sentence of that last post should begin “”Maybe it is simply ….” Grant, feel free to fix this if the software lets you.

By: Daniel Rosenblatt

Daniel Rosenblatt — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 01:39:23 +0000

Might is be simply that brands happen more than they are built, and that they are destroyed in part because those who own them don’t completely understand them. For example, I suspect the 3rd space aspect of Starbucks happenned because the space they made worked for that need and got take over for it. Some of why that space met the need wasn’t on purpose–for examply the smoking ban (at a time when that was just weird for a *coffeehouse*) might have come from connoisseurship not a desire to make a certain kind of space. I know from talking with a starbusks employee in about 1990, that at that point they thought only downtwon stores should be primarily about drinks, their idea was the neighborhood stores should get more than hal;d their sals from beans, something I doubt is true today. In general, when people succeed we (and they) tend to assume they knew what they were doing, whereas maybe the real trick for a successful company is to figure out what they did.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 17:03:13 +0000

I think it premature to worry about Starbucks siding with “money over magic”. Starbucks has done an exemplarary job of creating interest in their CD offering. I sit in Starbucks daily and I find myself whistling to their tunes and hoping that they stock the current tape(CD)that is playing. Starbucks has managed their business well. I say, let Starbucks push the boundaries of opportunity.