Assessing Brand Communication Strategies On Social Media: A Case Study Of Starbucks

Brand Objectives

Discuss about the Assessing Brand Communication Strategies On Social Media.

Brand management refers to the planning and analysis on how a brand is being perceived in the market. It is immensely essential to develop a strong relationship with the target consumers for managing a brand. The tangible elements for brand management comprise the product itself, outlook of the product, pricing, packaging and more. The intangible elements are the consumer experiences and their relationship with the brand (Heding, Knudtzen and Bjerre 2015). The key objective of this research paper is to develop a brand strategy for Starbucks, which was founded in the year 1971. The research paper will discuss about the brand objectives, strategies, competitive strategies and advertising costs, which will give an overview of their marketing campaigns. In addition to this, the research paper will analyze the Porter’s Five Forces in a brief manner, in order to gain an understanding regarding the future challenges of the brand. The global expansion of the brand has been strategic as well as rapid. Starbucks has been striving to build its brand image and identity, since its inception, by offering its customers with an enjoyable or relaxing experience.

The main objectives of Starbucks will be;

• To maintain the brand image or reputation.
• To achieve consumers’ respect and be one of the leading brands of the world.
• To be recognized by utilizing environment stewardship and ethnical sourcing.
• To become the leading brand or retailer of coffee by selling finest quality coffee or related products to its target consumers.

Starbucks need to use ethnical sourcing in order to appeal to the consumers, to buy purchase their products. The company is also environmentally aware as it is one of the major issues, which impacts the world. However, they should advertise or promote their ethical usage of the products in order to cater to the most number of the consumers. In addition to this, their strategies must include expansion of the global retail business for increasing the market share in more disciplined manner (Tsimonis and Dimitriadis 2014). Their main aim should be serving superior quality of products to its consumers, along with well maintained stores and staff members. These tactics would help them in creating innovative as well as new products in order to generate a loyal consumer supporting the marketing strategies.

Branding is one of the core elements of the company’s strategy, over the past years. The company has managed to invest a lot in the creation of a standardized feel as well as look of its food, drinks, stores and merchandises. However, Starbucks need to do a little more in order to motivate or encourage the customers. The marketers of Starbucks need to use the motivation-need theory in a very effective manner by creating an artificial demand for the consumers. The target consumers must be encouraged to prioritize their purchases towards the hierarchy base, as it is vital for Starbucks to instill the sense of urgency or need among them. Moreover, the psychoanalytic theory suggests that the marketing messages which consist of an emotional appeal to the feelings, aspirations, fears or hopes of the consumers, are often more efficient as well as effective than the rational appeals (Solomon et al. 2014). Therefore, Starbucks should concentrate more on the emotional appeal of the consumers and design their marketing strategies in accordance with that.

Brand Strategy

To cope with the complexities and pressures of branding, brand managers have adopted ideas to identify their brands. The brand identity of Starbucks lies in its logo, which means good quality coffee and food products. The imagery has always grabbed the attention of millions of its target consumers (Starbucks.in 2018). However, it is immensely important to remember that the brand value is being built by constantly delivering quality products and services. Without quality products, a simple logo can be a poor branding strategy. Therefore, it is important for the company to keep its quality intact. In addition to this, customers love surprises and hence, delighting the consumers with unexpected surprises can also help in maintaining their standards. Good brands need to recognize their brand essence and also address those, head on. Many years ago, the company began losing its ground to new entrants. For future innovation, the company needs to speak volumes regarding their connection with their customers, leadership, culture and consumer experiences. Strong brands pay attention to the valuable feedbacks of their consumers as well as employees (Wheeler 2017). Starbucks should ensure that their employees are empowered enough to deliver what the brand promises.

Companies all over the world are increasingly observing the benefit of a corporate branding strategy. Starbucks is obviously not a stranger to the marketing or brand campaigns as it has spent huge amounts in several advertising campaigns. However, the key thing to keep under consideration is that the marketing campaigns focuses on their consumers’ experiences as this directly link to the core philosophy and values. The brand promotion strategies need to be unconventional as well as unique and do not follow the tested models of advertising. Starbucks should rely heavily on newspaper, poster, magazine and billboard advertising (Paschen et al. 2017). The marketing campaigns of the company should focus on its product variants and offerings, highlighting the free goodies and more. Starbucks need to develop or build its brand image by communicating directly with the consumers, through marketing or advertising campaigns (Lee and Lee 2016). This particular principle of building the brand will help in reflecting the brand’s promotion or communication strategies in an efficient, yet effective strategy.

Starbucks will maintain its competitive advantage in the market by generating new ideas. They will get hold of the customers and make them comfortable by implementing new strategies. They will simply spread in the market by establishing one of their stores in such a way that it does not lose the profit of another store. They will use the strategy of setting up their stores in various areas based on the demography, location of the rival companies and the pattern of traffic. Moreover, employees will be considered as elements of brand to influence brand equity (Panwar et al. 2015).   

Brand Identity

The four dominant criteria that Starbucks will use for gaining competitive advantage include offering an effective position nearer to home and work. They will sell coffee of the most premium quality and spread around the international market by focusing on their upcoming economies. They will combine technology with their business processes in order to modify their functioning. They will create a friendly environment within their stores so that the customers can spend their leisure time (Utami 2017).

Starbucks might face the challenge of decrease in the number of customers in the upcoming days so they will have to look for new strategies to convince them for visit. The decrease in the number of customers will pose a negative impact on their sales figure. They will have a tough time in sorting out for methods that will increase in the number of customers. According to Porter’s Five Forces, Starbucks might be affected from the factors of:

• Strong competition- Starbucks will face strong competition due to lot of firms in variety and low switching cost
• Strong bargaining power of customers due to the strong force of substitute availability and  weak force of small size of individual customers
• Weak bargaining power of suppliers due to weak variety of suppliers, weak overall supply and moderate individual suppliers
• Strong threat of substitutes due to large availability and low cost of substitutes
• Moderate threat of new entry due to moderate cost of business and supply chain and weak force of high cost in brand development

This analysis has effectively portrayed that the threat of new entrants might not be of prime importance in the Starbucks’ strategies (E. Dobbs 2014).  

The company should have a strong innovation strategy in order to make an impact in the competitive market. In the case of Starbucks, innovation will be incorporated in the form of improving the products and services to satisfy the customers. This type of innovation will be basic for the establishment of a superior brand in the local and international market. If Starbucks relate their brand strategies with innovation, they will be able to gain a long- term competitive advantage and cope up with unpredictable recession (Bain and Kleinknecht 2016).

In the coffee drinking industry, there is a high scope of imitating the innovation concepts by offering variety of espressos and flavors. Therefore, Starbucks will need to modify their innovation strategies by improvising on the internal functions such as communication network, organizational culture, cost- cutting and improving efficiency rather than only developing new products. New form of innovation will permit the company to explain its brand philosophy by aligning with the constant changing demands of the customers. Innovation will be beneficial for customers to attract the customers away from the competitors (Boucher 2015).

Media Option	Attribute	Justification of media	Creative and Production services	Justification for creative and production	Time	Estimated Cost
Newspaper	Medium coverage	Limited to the number of readers	Artists, designers, creative writers	Professional and creative work	One month or less	$500- $2000 approximately
Television	Reach out to a large number of people	To reach out among a wide range of people	Copywriter, performers, director, camera persons etc.	Professional as well as creative	Two- three months	$4000 approximately
Posters	Target the audience based on its placement	Simple in nature, picture and slogan only	Artists, designers etc.	Creativity	Less than a week	$3000 approximately
Social Media and Websites	Can reach a wide number of internet users	Interactive and easily available	Graphic Designer, Illustrator, Artists etc.	Professional and creative	Less than a month	$100- $2000 approximately

Source: As created by the author

2.3. Overall requirements

An estimated budget of $70,000 had been allocated for the entire requirements and therefore the approximate budget is prepared accordingly.

Research	$10,000 approx
Media	$10,000 approx
Creative Production Fees	$20,000 approx
Advertising service fees	$10,000 approx
Contingencies	$20,000 approx
Total Expenditure	$70,000 approx

Figure: Estimated Budget

Source: As created by the author

Conclusion 

It can be concluded from the proposal that Starbucks will have to generate a brand strategy for them. It was discussed throughout the paper about the brand objectives, competitive strategies, brand identity and advertising costs, which has paved the way for their introductory campaign. The use of Porter’s Five Forces Analysis made it easy for defining the threats that might affect the company in the future days. Moreover, motivation- need theory and psychoanalytic theory has provided effective logical appeals to convince the customers in visiting their stores. The branding concepts have been widely discussed to throw light on the ways of managing the challenges that might emerge in the future days.

References

Bain, D. and Kleinknecht, A. eds., 2016. New concepts in innovation output measurement. Springer.

Boucher, F., 2015. From need to innovation [industrial activities]. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 22(3), pp.18-19.

1. Dobbs, M., 2014. Guidelines for applying Porter’s five forces framework: a set of industry analysis templates. Competitiveness Review, 24(1), pp.32-45.

Heding, T., Knudtzen, C.F. and Bjerre, M., 2015. Brand management: Research, theory and practice. Routledge.

Lee, Y.S. and Lee, J., 2016. Assessing Brand Communication Strategies on Social Media. Asian Communication Research, 13(1), pp.80-106.

Panwar, R., Nybakk, E., Pinkse, J. and Hansen, E., 2015, July. Competitive Strategies and Small Firms’ Social Responsibilities. In Proceedings of the International Association for Business and Society (Vol. 26, pp. 99-111).

Paschen, J., Pitt, L., Kietzmann, J., Dabirian, A. and Farshid, M., 2017. The brand personalities of brand communities: an analysis of online communication. Online Information Review, 41(7), pp.1064-1075.

Solomon, M.R., Dahl, D.W., White, K., Zaichkowsky, J.L. and Polegato, R., 2014. Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). Pearson.

Starbucks.in (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.starbucks.in/ [Accessed 3 May 2018].

Tsimonis, G. and Dimitriadis, S., 2014. Brand strategies in social media. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 32(3), pp.328-344.

Utami, W.N., 2017, July. ANALYZING COMPETITIVE STRATEGIES AS BUSINESS PRACTICE. Seminar Nasional Akuntansi dan Bisnis (SNAB), Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Widyatama.

Wheeler, A., 2017. Designing brand identity: An essential guide for the whole branding team. John Wiley & Sons.

Aaker, D.A. and Joachimsthaler, E., 2000. The brand relationship spectrum: The key to the brand architecture challenge. California management review, 42(4), p.8.

Gelb, B.D. and Rangarajan, D., 2014. Employee contributions to brand equity. California Management Review, 56(2), pp.95-112.

Hatch, M.J. and Schultz, M., 2001. Are the strategic stars aligned for your corporate brand. Harvard business review, 79(2), pp.128-134.