Starbucks: Brand Positioning Case Study

💼 The brand: Starbucks

💛 The empathy: Consumers desire tradition and nostalgia during the holiday season. 

☀️ The emotion: Joy and nostalgia

💡 The idea: Starbucks uses the “Red Cup” tradition to create an emotional connection and foster a sense of community during the holiday season. 

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I love the Christmas season. I love coffee. And my family spends way too much money at Starbucks this time of year.

Maybe it’s the colder weather. Maybe it’s the holidays. Or maybe it’s the iconic “red cup” and the nostalgia. But the Starbucks drive through acts like a magnet to my car.

My local Starbucks actually ran out of red cups recently due to the demand. Which got me to thinking about the tradition a little more.

Starbucks has done its red cup campaign for as long as I can remember. I especially remember it back in 2015 when they used a minimalist red design instead of the normal festive one and people lost their minds.

I did some digging and discovered that it’s been a tradition for over 25 years. 

What I was shocked to find out was that it actually started out as a purple cup (peep the bottom right ones).

If you’re not a Starbucks fan, you might be thinking what’s the big deal with the color of the cup?

For Starbucks, any change involving the brand or customer experience is a big deal. A lot is at stake. Starbucks has invested heavily into their rewards program to create raving fans and the average lifetime value of a Starbucks customer is reportedly $14,099.

So you can bet that every move they make with their brand is calculated. Including never changing their trusted white cup design any other time of the year.

This brings me back to the topic of how the Starbucks cup started out as purple. Why didn’t they keep it purple? 

Because of empathy and emotions.

Starbucks changed it from purple because the color purple doesn’t evoke the feelings of holiday nostalgia. Red and green does. 

It’s hard to measure the net effect of this holiday tradition in dollars, but it’s safe to say it’s worked. 

In fact, going back to 2015 when they used a less festive, minimalistic red cup that was cited as a “war on Christmas” — sales actually increased despite the negative press.

At this point, the red cup had become entrenched as a holiday tradition and Starbucks customers were emotionally attached. The detractors weren’t who Starbucks was serving anyway. 

This is the power of empathy.

It creates growth that occurs from deeply understanding your audience and serving them with exceptional intentionality.

It’s the best kind of growth. Because when you understand your audience and serve them in the way they want to be served, they stick with you.

In Starbucks’ case, to the tune of $14k over a lifetime.

⚡️Idea Inspiration

• Rituals and traditions are powerful trust builders. How can you create one with your marketing?
• Rituals don’t have to complicated. A red cup at Christmas. A weekly email. A monthly call. The key is in the intentionality.
• Building a strong connection compounds the lifetime value of your audience. Where can you double down on serving your customers?

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