About a year ago, I wrote a post about the opportunity for Starbucks to take advantage of digital signage in order to consolidate and upgrade the cacophony of messaging and offers in their stores. A year later, the thoughts still hold water. In an interesting and clearly unrelated development, Starbucks has recently been in the news for a couple of reasons related to digital media, none of which include digital signage. Strung together, the three tidbits of news leave me scratching my head. Let’s take a quick look at the news and try to figure out what might be going through the venti minds in Seattle.
On Monday at WIRED’s Disruptive by Design conference, Starbucks announced that it would provide free, unlimited WiFi access to all customers, dramatically broadening internet access in the stores from the current situation. In the same announcement, Starbucks also unveiled the Starbucks Digital Network, which will provide free access to paid internet portals in the Starbucks stores. The company even created a new division, Digital Ventures, to manage the new strategy.
On Tuesday, MediaPost contributor Augie Ray blogged about Starbucks’ venture (or misadventure) into monetizing Foursquare, the social media tool du jour. Ray details how Starbucks may have missed the mark with the promotion, and how similar actions by other advertisers may effectively kill the “Special Nearby” feature on Foursquare. The article provides quite a bit of insight into the early days of Foursquare advertising in general, and details Starbucks’ fast and aggressive move into mobile marketing.
The Starbucks announcement and their Foursquare campaign combine to provide some insight into the digital strategy of the coffee giant. The free WiFi and the Starbucks Digital Network seem to be all about making the Starbucks stores the “third place” between home and work. Where WiFi access used to be limited to 2 hours for non-AT&T users, now it is always on for all customers. That is certainly a good thing. The SDN appears to be an attempt to create a uniquely Starbucks online experience, providing content of value for free, through the device of the customers’ choice. This is also a nice gift to the denizens of the deep couches. The SDN won’t accept advertising, which makes sense as well. The objective of the WiFi offer and the SDN would appear to be getting people to spend more time in the stores. One would hope that would translate into greater frequency of visits and a lift in sales. Otherwise, it merely adds cost.
Here is my disconnect: in my experience, the large majority of Starbucks customers are transient. They come in, get their beverage and food, doctor it up, and leave. The folks in the chairs and couches are a combination of regulars who stake out their territory daily, random people meeting over a coffee, and folks who just want to sit down and enjoy their purchase before they jump back in their car. Most will appreciate the free WiFi upgrade. Some will avail themselves of the free boost over The Wall Street Journal’s paywall. But I don’t think either effort will change the experience for the in-and-out crowd. Starbucks continues to take the approach that to the extent that there are digital screens in their stores, those screens will arrive and depart with their customers. In-store communications and marketing will apparently continue to be chalkboards, printed signs and impromptu notices hot off the printer. The opportunity to provide a cohesive, dynamic and visually superior branding experience via a single digital display in each store does not appear to be on the radar. Letting the huge majority of transient customers absorb what they need to know from chalk and print is a missed opportunity to leverage dwell time, build brand and even encourage them to sit down for a while. Instead of investing in a digital signage network that might integrate with a Foursquare promotion (“The mayor of this location is _____ _____”), Starbucks appears to have leaped the in-store marketing chasm and gone directly to mobile marketing. Maybe I am jaded, but I don’t get it. Why create a unique online experience and skip over a unique in-store experience?
The WiFi and SDN programs, while both positive, seem to have an objective of extending the stays of those who choose to sit down, and to create a caffeinated online zone for those same people. The objective of the Foursquare promotion seems to be to get people to vie for mayor status in order to save a dollar. It looks like an attempt to increase the visit frequency of Foursquare users. Mr. Ray details why that may backfire, but the attempt has merit. I am not belittling any of Starbucks’ actions, but I am openly questioning how they can ignore the opportunity to use digital signage to pull it all together. For their own reasons, Starbucks may have determined that digital signage is not consistent with their objectives. Maybe it is the execution in coffeehouses by Danoo, Ripple and others that turned them off. Maybe they have run tests and been underwhelmed. Maybe they feel that the capital investment is too high. Or maybe they need to re-examine their objectives. I’d venture that selling more coffee, food and music would be objectives that shareholders would readily endorse. Digital signage would do that while extending every other marketing vehicle to the point of decision. It is a year later, but it is never too late.
Ken,
Starbucks would be well served in launching an in-store digital signage network. Given the SDN announcement, digital signage would act as a connective tissue to tie the entire Starbucks customer experience together. I believe that your theory is correct, in that Starbucks has likely been turned off by existing digital signage deployments. This is a common problem across the DS industry. My issue, however, is that Starbucks is an ideal venue for digital signage (as you continue to promote).
Just because the powers that be at Starbucks may not like existing digital signage networks is a terrible reason to look past a burgeoning communication platform. The foundation of a Starbucks digital signage network would need to be framed by the look and feel of the company’s stores. With a well-thought strategy, digital signage could be integrated into Starbucks’ locations so that the network enhances the customer experience (while staying true to the overall Starbucks aesthetic).
Agreed. As soon as I saw word of this I thought like David that this was the moment when this could all be pulled together into something compelling and impactful.
My guess is that less than 10 per cent – maybe way less – of Starbucks customers stay long enough to crack laptops or whip out tablets. As Ken suggests, most are in and out.
There is a pile of evidence now that screens in QSR drive big sales lifts when done right. With the broadband in place, custom content being created, and a very strong likelihood a screen network would pay for itself. not having digital in there is absolutely a missed opportunity.
Starbucks needs a good consulting group, right David ;-]
Asolutley David,
I completely agree with your comments about the “Starbucks aesthetic”.
Starbucks (in my opinion) is an extremely brand conscious company. The content and strategy would need to be executed well, and I have no doubt that their agency would do so. However, the physical installation would probably need to have a lot (if not as much) thought and love poured into it.
The in-store experience at Starbucks is based on the old, traditional look and feel of the Italian Coffee Bar: (http://www.starbucks.com/about-us/our-heritage I’m guessing that retaining this brand experience is, above all, most important to their corporate culture.
However, I do believe with a well thought out design plan, (both content strategy and installation) they would greatly beinfit from the technology.