Wednesday, 30 May 2007

Less Tea Vicar?

Great to see coffee still growing in the UK, now they just need to dramatically improve the quality.

Why is it that the coffee chains do so well?

Usually the product is not great, is it advertising, position ,sheer weight of numbers, just what does drive the modern consumer and will it change?

Link

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Chains work because of parking, predictability, convenience and having clean toilets.

Starbucks vision and actual practice is two differnt things.

Do you know about the board of customers?

John Moore In response to Howard Schulz’s memo citing his concern over the direction Starbucks is headed, John Moore, a former marketing guru at Starbucks, enlists the ‘Starbucks Board of Customers’ (i.e. readers of Moore’s blog and Starbucks customers) to propose which changes the company must make to maintain (reclaim?) its integrity.

Intro
http://changethis.com/33.01.WhatStarbucks

Anonymous said...

The coffee chains do well in the UK because they arrived before there was a strong network of independent cafes who did great coffee. Accordingly peoples' first experience of vaguely well made coffee (and believe me you have to taste some of the swill that some places here produce) was in a Starbucks, and they haven't thought to change subsequently. Contrast this with NZ where the independents got in and established themselves long before the chains arrived.

Anonymous said...

apropos of nothing:

I spent a month travelling thru France and couldn't get a decent cup of coffee anywhere. I was expecting more from the French cafes, and it was a great disappointment having just come from a month in Italy where it was all so good.
The best coffee I had in France was an espresso at 6am from the McCafe in Lyon of all places.

~ NIck D'Angelo