This week, the friendliest coffee franchise that normally greets visitors with a captivating green mermaid took a turn towards the spookiest season with some new drink innovations as well as some new service innovations.
Anticipating the release of the next big horror film, Starbucks began marketing a new frappuccino to pay homage to one of the creepiest clowns on the silver screen–Pennywise from It. Now that It: Chapter 2 is approaching its release, baristas have frequently been adapting the traditional vanilla bean frappuccino to entice customers to try this new beverage.
As pictured above, the drink features a strawberry puree to look like blood. While the drink may appear complex, it simply features a vanilla bean frappuccino, and the strawberry addition just adds a sweet bit of fruity flavor to liven up the drink. I think this drink is an excellent marketing strategy. Starbucks dominates the industry of iced coffee and cold brew, most of which targets younger teenagers and young adults. This age range is also the target age range of It: Chapter Two, and this will bring in customers who are fans of the movie franchise and curious customers who are interested in trying a new drink from their favorite daily coffee place.
Another Starbucks feature talks about the debut of a new “Starbucks Pickup” location in New York City. This new development will be for Starbucks Rewards customers who plan to skip the line, order online, and pick up their order at a booth. These locations do not offer seating for guests, so they are exclusive to mobile rewards members. Once again, I think this is a smart play on Starbucks’s behalf. They gain more rewards members since most people who live in the city want to minimize the time they spend in line before their lengthy commute to work. It will make Starbucks the more popular option for people who value efficiency over the entire coffee shop experience since other companies do not offer a similar option.
As a final update on the company’s performance in the past week, below is a recap of the rise and fall of the stocks from Monday to Friday.
The stock has declined from last week, starting with a negative slope on Monday and then reaching an incline from Tuesday the 17th until the end of the day on Thursday the 19th. However, the stock appears to have continued to drop throughout the day on Friday the 20th, and it will be interesting to see how the stock changes in the upcoming week.
Continuing on my tradition of weekly drink recommendations, this week I recommend one last taste of summer before the temperatures begin to drop into fall. The weather seems to be favoring the 80-90 degree range for the next week, so I suggest that you should chill off with a very berry hibiscus refresher. Some choose to add lemonade to this drink to add more of a fruity mix to the beverage, and it has a very limited amount of caffeine along with many berries to enjoy in the drink. With that, I look forward to writing to you next week.
Jenna Kurtz 