McCafe taking over??

 

I love this author! I was laughing my head off the whole way through. In this news report, Dan Neil explains the new continuous battle for the coffee between Starbucks and McDonalds.

            McDonalds just came out with a huge $10 million campaign to promote their cappuccinos, lattes, iced coffees and hot chocolate. This is the largest campaign McDonald’s has had since they came out with breakfast in 1970. This shows the aggression of the company to take over the coffee world. Neil explains that this could be hard to do for reasons I have discussed in previous blogs. The jist of it is that Starbucks is known to be a prestigious, well made coffee for elite people to go to. The problem is, in recent years, Starbucks has lost that aspect of the corporation, which was a huge mistake considering that was the part about them that really drew people in.

            With Starbucks’ new campaign, they are trying to bring this aspect back. The past couple years have been rough for the “green mermaid”, but the good news is recently, their losses have stabilized. Neil predicts this is starting for two reasons. The first is that maybe Starbucks' clientele is clinging to a hope for better times in the future, or they are spending money on affordable luxuries, while necessities grow increasingly unaffordable.

            Neil brings up a very good point concerning the McDonald’s campaign. The word McCafé doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Having three stressed syllables makes it a hard word to say. I totally agree with this. The campaign will be a hard one to talk about casually for this reason.

            Even though Starbucks is starting the new campaign to attempt and bring it back to their original state, I doubt that can be done with the new items on the menu that resemble fast food milkshakes. According to Neil, a decade ago, the Starbucks audience was primarily affluent, college-educated intellectuals, a self-selected group of customers. Starbucks was the one who imported the notion of cafe society into the United States. It was the promised "third place" between home and work, where one could relax, read, talk and delectify a good cuppa in peace. Starbucks was social without the media. Things are really different now, and it looks to me like they won’t be going back.