A Critical Analysis of Branding and Marketing Strategy of Starbucks - Assignment Example

? Starbucks Corporation: A Critical Analysis of Branding and Marketing Strategy Project Proposal Ashraf Albataineh 7 Prof.  Timothy Malone Contents Contents 2 I.Company Background 3 Company Overview 3 II.Significance and Objective of the Project 3 Research objective 3 Management problems 4 Marketing Research problems 5 Hypothesis 5 Research Question 6 III.Methodology 6 Project Research Technique 6 Justification of Research Design 7 IV.Sample Selection 8 Identification of Sample Size 8 Justification of the Choice of Sample Size 8 V.References 9 I. Company Background Company Overview Starbucks Corporation is an USA based global coffee chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks also happens to be the largest coffee chain in the world. The first ever Starbucks, opened in Seattle in the year 1971. It was opened by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Alfred Peet. From the year 1971 to 1976, Starbucks was at Western Avenue. After the company moved to 1912 Pike Place there has been no relocations. The company used to sell roasted Coffee. In the initial days the company was not selling any brew coffee. During the mid 1980s the company cashed in the opportunity to purchase Peets. However, during this time the company sales begun to fall. At that point of time, Starbucks was bought by Howard Schultz who had the vision of making Starbucks a real global brand. Howard Schultz decided to rebrand Giornale coffee chains as Starbucks. Since then there has been no turning for the company. Today the company has become the largest coffeehouse in the world. The company has 20, 891 stores on a global basis in over sixty countries. This includes over ten thousand stores in USA, over thousand stores in Canada, and over five hundred stores in UK, Japan, China, Mexico, turkey, Thailand, Germany and India. As on 2012 the total revenue of the company was US$13.29 billion (Keller, 2012). II. Significance and Objective of the Project Research objective One of the major reasons for success of the company has been the branding and marketing strategy of the company. Unlike some of the other major firms Starbucks does not invest heavily in advertising and hence the marketing and branding strategy of the company is unique. The objective of the study: To critically analyze the key brand elements of the company To analyze the overall brand management strategy of the company To provide some recommendation that would help the company in gaining competitive advantage over the competitors. Management problems Starbucks Corporation is a US based global coffeehouse chain headquartered in Washington. It is the largest coffee house organization around the globe. The organization is operating in 62 countries with its 20,891 outlets. Unique organizational value helped Starbucks to increase their core competencies. Earlier the organization’s value was to provide high quality coffee to its customers. Moreover, they committed to provide effective customer service and a good coffee experience to its customers. When Mr. Schultz became the CEO of Starbucks they drifted away from the original organizational value. Lack of effective customer service is affecting the brand image of Starbucks in global market (Roger, 2010). Inadequate pricing strategy is reducing the customer preference. Due to fluctuating economic, political and weather condition in several countries, people are trying to reduce the coffee consumption from Starbucks. Moreover, it has been identified that in some place the quality of Starbucks’ coffee is decreasing. The management of Starbucks is worried about it. It is important for the organization to provide high quality coffee in order to maintain the leading position within the competitive global market place. The organization is lacking effective customer relationship. Several labor issues and internal organizational conflicts are reducing the motivation and self confidence level of customers. These issues are decreasing effective customer service activities. Marketing Research problems Starbucks is one of the leading global coffee chains. Effective marketing research activities helped Starbucks to implement effective global expansion strategy. However, the organization faced problems during gathering online information to determine the impact and recall of the out of home media. Unlike other organizations, Starbucks have done insufficient investment in the advertisements and promotional activities. This marketing research problem of Starbucks is information oriented (Lamb, Hair & McDaniel, 2007). The management decision of Strabucks is action oriented regarding this problem. The organization failed to create potential brand awareness in global market place due to lack of sufficient investment in advertising and promotional activities. However, Starbucks has identified this issue and is trying to rectify it. Starbucks is focusing on online social media promotional strategy. This strategy will help the organization to develop a potential client base. Moreover, this online promotional strategy is both time and cost effective. It is important for the organization to follow the organizational value. This will help to maintain the organizational ethics. Hypothesis Brand Management strategy of Starbucks is enhancing its brand image in global competitive market. Research Question What is the effect of brand management strategy on Starbuck’s brand image in global market? III. Methodology There are two types of research methods like qualitative and quantitative research method. Quantitative research focuses on the evaluation and analysis of numerical data. On the other hand, qualitative research considers feeling, behavior, attitude and motivation of people. Depending on the nature of the study and topic, it can be stated that qualitative research method will be effective for the study. Moreover, secondary data collection method has been undertaken as the major data collection method. Project Research Technique The objective of this research is to determine the impact of brand management strategy of Starbucks on its brand image in global market place. The nature of this study is exploratory. Therefore, it can be stated that implementation of qualitative research method will be effective based on the exploratory nature of the study. The study does not need large sample size. Moreover, the study will deal with respondents’ feelings, meanings, motivation, attitude and behavior. There is no scope of quantitative analysis in this study. Therefore, qualitative research method will be effective to draw significant research outcome. Justification of Research Design There are several research designs that can be adopted based on the behavior and nature of the research. This research will determine the impact of Starbuck’s bran management strategies on its brand image in global market in which the feelings, motivation and attitude of the common people towards the organization’s brand image can be investigated. In the field of marketing research, 35 types of research approaches in qualitative method can be implemented based on three major research orientations. These are theory building approach, interpretative approach and language oriented approach. Theory building approach evaluates the links between various social phenomena. Language oriented approach determines the language and internal meanings of the words (Marshall & Rossman, 2010). On the other hand, interpretative approach thoroughly describes and interprets various social phenomena that are focused to the central. An open ended interview process has been selected for the study as major data collection method based on interpretative research approach orientation of the study. Qualitative interview process determines the interaction between an interviewer and interviewee on a particular research subject which not follow specific words and answering or questing orders. Interviewers or the researchers investigates each and every responds of the interviewees to apply the responds or answers for future research activities. Structure of the interview process can be categorized into three parts, such as structured interview process, semi-structured interview process and unstructured interview process. Semi-structured interview process has been selected for the study. Utilization of semi-structured interview process will help the researchers to regard the respondents or interviewees as empirical authorities under the exploration. Semi-structured interview process will help to improve the sensitive and emphatic facets of various interview processes (Wengraf, 2001). Through this interview structure, researchers can sum up several unexpected and interesting responses or answers materialized during the interview process. IV. Sample Selection Identification of Sample Size Effective brand management and product positioning strategy helps Starbucks to maintain its leading position within the global coffeehouse chain retail industry. Semi-structure interview process has been implemented for this specific study based on the exploratory nature of the research. The sample size is 12. 12 management students of Texas University have been selected for the purpose of face-to-face interview process. Their views and ideas will help the researcher to achieve the objective of the study. Justification of the Choice of Sample Size All the students or the respondents belong to same university. The findings can reveal that, the homogeneous participants may help to reduce the chances of various model measurement errors. It is not that much difficult to monitor, control and rectify the errors which can be emerged during the theory resting process. Major characteristic of the homogeneous sample size is the narrow degree of several external validities. This particular characteristic of this sample size will guide the researchers to outline significant research output (Klenke, 2008). V. References Arvidsson, A. 2006. Brands. Meaning and value in media culture. New York: Routledge. Burke, J., (2010). Educational Research: Quantitative, Qualitative and Mixed Approaches. UK: Sage Publishers. Danesi, M. 2006. Brands. New York: Routledge. Hanna, E., Stair, M. and Render, B., (2012). Quantitative Analysis for Management. New York: Pearson. Hardin, W. and Good, P., (2012). Common Errors in Statistics and How To Avoid Them. Oxford: Wiley Publishers. Keller, K. 2012, Strategic Brand Management, Global Edition 4E. Londoon: Pearson Education. Klenke, K. (2008). Qualitative Research in the Study of Leadership. New York: Emerald Group. Lamb, C., Hair, J., & McDaniel, C. (2007). Marketing. Stamford: Cengage Learning. Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. (2010). Designing Qualitative Research. London: Sage. Roger, K. (2010). Strategic Marketing Problems: Cases and Comments. New Jersey: Pearson. Wengraf, T. (2001). Qualitative Research Interviewing. London: Sage. Read More