Starbucks Loses, Tries to Mend Its Way

For our Strategy class, all first-year students are required to read Scott Bedbury's A New Brand World. In it, the author recounts his years as Senior Vice President of Marketing at both Nike from 1986-1993, and Starbucks from 1995-1998. Great stories, really interesting, very well-written, all told from the one man responsible for helping create two of the greatest brands in the world.

One of the things he mentions about Starbucks that interested me was something that their founder, Howard Shultz, once said:

"We're not in the coffee business serving people. We're in the people business serving coffee."

Under that mantra, ironically, Starbucks has gotten so big that in the last several months it seemed they forgot that.

So in an unprecedented move today, from 5:30pm to 8:30pm, every single one of Starbucks' 7,100 stores will close for employee training, according to an article on CNN.com.

But don't worry. Dunkin' Donuts, taking full advantage of the situation, announced that it will offer small lattes, cappuccinos or espresso drinks for a promotional price of 99 cents today from 1 pm to 10.

Those sneaky, clever bastards.

dubs. out.