Starbucks executives hope such innovations will help surmount
their toughest challenge in the home market: attracting the next
generation of customers. Younger coffee drinkers already feel uncomfortable in the stores. The company knows that because it once
had a group of twentysomethings hypnotized for a market study.
When their defenses were down, out came the bad news. “They either can’t afford to buy coffee at Starbucks, or the only peers they
see are those working behind the counter,” says Mark Barden, who
conducted the research for the Hal Riney & Partners ad agency
(now part of Publicis Worldwide) in San Francisco. One of the recurring themes the hypnosis brought out was a sense that “people
like me aren’t welcome here except to serve the yuppies,” he says.
Then there are those who just find the whole Starbucks scene a bit
pretentious. Katie Kelleher, 22, a Chicago paralegal, is put off by
Starbucks’ Italian terminology of grande and venti for coffee sizes.
She goes to Dunkin’ Donuts, saying: “Small, medium, and large is
fine for me.”