The CALM Scramble

ESPAÑOL

What’s the first brand that comes to mind if you think about instant coffee? It’s very likely you might think of Nescafé. That might not be the case for long. When a category leader feels the need to advertise against a new entrant, it might be evidence that their business is starting to hurt. And if you base your differentiation on a product attribute against an experiential poster child, you just seem clueless about what’s hitting your sales. Evidence #1: the current ads found on many of the city bus stops, shown below.

Bus Stop Ad for Nescafé

In case you can’t tell from the picture, here’s the text:

Taste for yourself. Hype or Flavor? Nescafé Taster’s Choice Vanilla.

Obviously, the “hype” brand is Starbucks VIA Ready Brew, as many of the design elements in the cup and the packaging are distinctive of the brand. Is hype a bad thing? Only if it is just hype. But if people taking “the challenge” can’t differentiate between Starbucks freshly brewed coffee and their instant version, it would rarely qualify as just hype.

Nescafé counterattacks on the basis of “flavor”. Is taste something that Starbucks can’t claim to have? Ironically, Nescafé themselves say Starbucks tastes great as we will see later in this post. To make things more interesting, someone inside their organization came up with the idea to use an ambiguous term as “flavor”, and it made it to the final ads. If you have a vanilla flavored choice, is it taste, or the vanilla flavor that makes the difference?

Keeping up with missing the point, they decide to show the actual products spilling out of the packs. The “hype” brand shows a coffee powder that Starbucks has positioned as their proprietary micro-grinding process, while Nescafé shows the coarser grains that have been traditional in their instant coffee. The problem is that Starbucks already tackled the coarse grains as something to avoid. They are creating a disease. See it for yourself in their YouTube’s introduction video for Starbucks VIA.

Sounds bad? It’s worst. Evidence #2: Nescafé’s website, which is tied to the ads, but doesn’t appear in them. To find it, I had to run a Google search, which led me to an sponsored link (not the most cost effective way). I was surprised to find out that the main claim on the website is regarding price. As I said before, they even claim both taste great! Yet they have wallpapers comparing again the flavor. Could they make up their mind?

I recommend you visit the site, and take a look at the “See the light” section, where they talk about how everything is the same, but the price and the brand. The “Shameless plugs” section shows an assortment of wallpapers, similar to the bus stop ads. Finally, and my favorite one, is the “Viva variety” section. There they claim they are on the Dark Side. Perhaps they got that one right. May the force be with them!

What is Starbucks real advantage? They have always been recognized for their customer experience management, despite the road bumps that resulted from their fast and massive expansion. Their communications address taste not being enough, but giving a great experience being it all. They don’t even make promises they can’t keep, but offer the opportunity for a good time. For an example, see these ads found last year on some BART stations.

Last Year's Starbucks Ads at BART Stations

Can they still pull off to manage the customer experience, once outside of the controlled environment of their coffee shops and into the ordinary moments in people’s houses, offices and elsewhere? They might. Perhaps, judging by Nescafé’s reaction, Starbucks is already doing so. Starbucks never mentions them. Who leads the coffee drinking experience?

In either case, Starbucks have created yet another touch-point with customers of their brand, bringing them a great taste that is guaranteed by their proprietary micro-grinding process (even if it is just words). They are offering convenience with the individual package that Nescafé seems to have copied (I’m not a big instant coffee drinker, but I wasn’t aware of such packaging until the launch of VIA). If you visit the VIA website, you’ll notice they aren’t selling instant coffee. They are selling Ready Brew. They are selling the Starbucks VIA Experience.

Then they encourage customers to share their experiences and stories with text, photos and/or video, which are featured on the site. They don’t stop there, but also invite them to share recipes on which they are using VIA in unexpected ways. They promote the VIA Road Trip, which links to a YouTube Starbucks’ channel. In short, they are creating a community, while managing the customer experience. Just what they do best. Far, far away from the tasty, flavorful and cheap instant coffee from Nescafé.