Six Principles of Brilliant Branding from Starbucks’ John Moore
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 - by Becky Sheetz-RunkleBuild a business that’s profitable, makes employees and customers happy and you don’t need to worry about branding. Branding will take care of itself.
These aren’t sentiments you’d expect from a marketer, must less John Moore, who designed and implemented marketing programs for Starbucks Coffee for eight years. But he’s pretty much an authority.
I attended his presentation before Accelerent last week. Special thanks to Brad Powell of JX2 Professional Software Services for the invitation. In his talk, Moore espoused six principles worth consideration—if not embracing—by marketers everywhere. Because he’s a heck of a wordsmith, some of his phrases are repeated here verbatim, or at least close to it. Here are the first three of his six principles:
1. The more obvious you are, the more original you appear…and vice versa. And here’s something particularly compelling for some in the tech marketing world. There’s no such thing as a dull product category. There are only dull brands.
He stressed the importance of earning opinions from your customers. A way to do that: unconventional names for your cup sizes. By taking something common and making it uncommon, you make your customers feel special, citing loyal customers who speak Starbuckian.
2. Be careful when defying your “circle of expectations.” The more obvious you are, the smaller the circle gets. Starbucks’ mark in the sand, as defined by Moore:
· bold coffee (this isn’t Folgers!)
· high quality beans
· not cheap
· non-traditional marketing consisting of locations as billboards and patrons carrying the distinctive cup
· comfortable stores
· engaged employees–another part of the Starbucks experience
The point is that the smaller the circle, the more effective the brand. Starbucks tried milder coffee, cheap coffee, salads, ice cream and other brainstorms that Moore said were unsuccessful because they were outside the circle.
3. If you want to earn customer loyalty, first earn employee loyalty. Your competitors can replicate your products and programs, but they can’t replicate your corporate culture.
Check back later this week for more on Moore’s six principles….
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