Creator of Excitement ✘ Brand+Culture+Strategy Consultant ✘ Co-Founder @Gamewiz ✘ Making people excited about businesses
I strongly believe that the success of Starbucks came down to one main idea... It’s not the coffee, the pumpkin spice, or even the prime corner locations often mentioned. It’s something far more profound: a black Sharpie. A black Sharpie that gave people more than a beverage. Think about all the early Instagram photos of happy, caffeinated people with their names—spelled correctly about 60% of the time—and the pride and connection they felt holding a customized cup. People felt truly excited to buy coffee. ☕️ This friendly, personalized approach—someone greeting you with a smile and making your coffee, just like in Italian caffetterias where the inspiration came from—is essential in a society that can often feel lonely. It’s why, against all financial advice, people willingly pay extra for a Starbucks coffee they could have easily made at home. Starbucks nailed two components of excitement better than anyone else at the time: they grabbed attention and built connection. (Imagine what would happen if they added the third component of excitement, distinction.) While grabbing attention with prime locations is a smart move, it wouldn’t have worked if Starbucks hadn’t already nailed the deeper connection component. Their superpower tool is a cheap Sharpie combined with brilliant creative thinking and an understanding of the human need to belong and connect. In essence, Starbucks is the brand that a single cheap Sharpie made. 💬 What’s your Starbucks order for the next time we meet up? Send me a line if you want to know what YOUR equivalent of the sharpie could be! 💭 How do you feel about Starbucks or Sharpies or Starbucks Reserve for that matter? When was the last time you got excited about getting Starbucks? If the majority of answers aren’t "I’m excited now, let’s go grab something," then it’s time for the Starbucks innovation team to go back to the drawing board, grab that good old Sharpie, and start creating something truly exciting for the people who made this company big by appreciating such a small thing as a Sharpie.
LOVE this take! 🙌 It's so good that I've forwarded it onto a client who has a chain of coffee shops as food for thought. 👏
Building connections- so important! I wasn’t really a Starbucks person until….one day I downloaded the app. Suddenly I was buying everyone coffee!! The app also built connections - saving my drink and the drinks of friends, points, knowing when I visited, asking for feedback. Of course, now I miss my name in Sharpie!
This ☝️ Absolutely spot on post. #TeamDirtyChai
It had to be the Sharpie, because the ☕️ was never that good.
Bloomin’ love this! You’re so right! (Oh and mine’s an oat milk flat white please! 😉)
My order is a caramel macchiato with almond milk! I love your take on this and pulling out the simplest things. Starbucks did with the simplest tool made the biggest impact!
Customer Experience & Engagement | I help companies optimize customer engagement and retention through product, process, and service improvements
1moIn recent years, the Starbucks I have gone to no longer use the Sharpie. It's a sticker, a large one. Interesting that you bring this up because I've thought about how this sticker looks like it was made by a dot matrix printer from 30 years ago. It's inconsistent with the rest of the brand image.