Brand Image – Starbucks: How To Create a “B(r)and of Brothers”

Starbucks has formed a brand image every company should want to achieve. Starbucks has managed to build a community of devotees, evangelists and receives nearly no negative feedback.

Starbucks is one of the best examples on how to manage an nurture the magnitude of social media to form a great brand image. We analyzed last weeks comments on their Facebook page, to see how their followers interact and give feedback.

The Starbucks Fanpage received 1600 comments directly on the page and an additional 3500 comments to the five posts the company put up on Facebook.

The feedback on their page was positive in 62% of the cases. 34% were either without a clear sentiment, in a different language or had nothing to do with the product. Only 3% were negative and only 1% of the customers said they would never go to Starbucks again.

The interesting thing about Starbucks’ Facebook site is that the company has managed to build a community running without having to intervene. Devoted Starbucks lovers give answers to questions, defend the brand when negative comments appear or just express how much they love the coffee.

An additional point to highlight is, that Starbucks employees are very active evangelists. They help out wherever they can and actively express their love towards the brand. They engage in personal interaction and connect with customers even when they are not working. This might be one of the best examples of direct marketing. Getting your employees to share the passion and interact with the customer not only as an employee but as a friend.

On the other hand this evaluation should not be weighed too strongly. With a Fan count of 7.9 million fans on their Facebook page, the 5100 comments during the evaluation period sum up to 0.0334 comments per fan per year. This might show that only the most devoted followers actively join into a discussion. The Facebook page could therefore be a great tool to identify the most loyal customers and also identify customer complaints.

In the end, nearly everyone has something good to say about Starbucks:

“Well, I went through a phase where I refused to contribute along with the masses to this GIGANTIC chain of coffee shops… But while working fot this company in 2005 I made a venti Cinnamon Latte every evening for a regual customer… who is now my husband/love of my life and Father to my son and future children. So…”

Here are some nice examples of comments:

Evaluation Method

The evaluation of the Brand Awareness and Brand Image was conducted on the comments on the Facebook Fanpage of Starbucks. The comments were analyzed according to their sentiment according to the coding scheme by Glasser &Strauss’s (1967) adopted by Jansen, Zhang, Sobel & Chowdury (2009) (Twitter Power: Tweets as Electronic Word of Mouth):

• No Sentiment: Comment has no emotion words or special punctuation, is matter-of-fact sounding, or contains just a brand mention (e.g., Wondering what time the Banana Republic store at the mall closes)
• Wretched: Comment is purely negative overall feelings or only allowed a slightly positive word. For a product , “wouldn’t buy it again”, “wouldn’t recommend it,” or “ had horrible time with it,” (e.g, Screw you Google maps. It’s good thing I have this compass and sharp stick).
• Bad: Comment contains mainly negative phrases and words, with a disappointed tone. There may be a few positive ones (e.g., Sitting next to a “smart car” in traffic. These things just look weird. About as long as rickshaw).
• So-So: Comment is a mediocre or balanced sentiment. The positive and negative statements seem to balance each other, or it is neither positive nor negative overall. Even if there are more negative phrases, the positive ones use a stronger language than the negative phrases: however, the positive ones are stronger and outweigh the negative ones (e.g. Wii fit is fine, just leave enough room around you to wave your arms!)
• Swell: Comment is mainly positive terms, such as good or nice. There may be some negative phrases; however, the positive ones are stronger and outweigh the negative ones (e.g., You might have those forever stamps that are all good no matter the price of a current stamp).
• Great: Purely positive in tone and wording in the comment expressing strong affirmative feelings with no complaints. It may have the smallest negative word, but comments are: “would definitely recommend it,” “use it again,” (e.g., Heaven on earth, the Banana Republic outlet store 40% off sale)