The unicorn frappucino was NOT a brilliant marketing campaign, it's everything wrong with modern, pseudo marketing. The problem with Starbucks is not that people don't know who they are, or that people don't see them on Instagram. Without personal judgement and simply looking at their position in the market, the issue is that people have stopped seeing them as a good coffee place, see them as not cool, too commercial, and some see them as basic. They're accessible, they're convenient, they're pretty consistent, but people who enjoy coffee and know coffee, do not see them as good coffee and prefer more independent coffee shops. Starbucks has said they'd like to be seen as more than coffee but the unicorn frappucino is so far from all their regular menu options and is only available for such a short period of time that they're not building a new customer base for anything else either. The unicorn frappucino basically reaffirmed the view that Starbucks goes for gimmicks, is mostly sugar, uses artificial flavours and colours, appeals more to kids, and is more marketing than product. Have they done the market research to determine that message was worth it? Do they have more products like this down the line that made them want to associate with this messaging? Maybe? It's hard to say what the plan is down the road without being in the room but if your business is thinking of creating a unicorn anything, think about what message you want to send, not just how many people will see it or if it will look cool on Instagram. https://www.facebook.com/theglobeandmail/videos/10155199894863904/ #brandintegrity #marketing101 #digitalbeyonddesign #digitalmarketing #socialmediamarketing (at Toronto, Ontario)
