Q. What’s the difference between a salesman and a marketer?
A. Salesmen know when they are lying.

{Full disclosure: I love Starbucks, I go there quite often. I just find it silly when people take themselves too seriously.}

Caleb Hannon wrote a recent article in the Daily Weekly that  concluded with directions on how to “cleanse yourself of the stench of Pfeiffer’s corporate-speak.” I’m not sure if the self-important proclamations he refers to are quite this egregious but you have to admit that Pfeiffer and many other marketers do tend to take themselves a bit too seriously.

Starbucks is opening new custom designed stores that attempt to blend in with their local environments. That’s it. Unfortunately that sound bite would only last for a few seconds so Tim Pfeiffer, Starbucks VP of Global Magnificence felt he needed to fill that void with over three minutes of Starbucks marketing dribble.

The following is a guide to help you better understand what Starbucks is trying to say in this video:

“Cafe Presence” – A store.
“Open the Throat” – I believe he is either referring to an in-store tracheotomy procedure or perhaps this is a euphemism for increasing cut throat business practices… not sure which.
“Major Coffee Theatre” – A clear indication that everything he and the company does and says is an act, they don’t really mean any of it.
“Elevate the offering” – The religious connotations are self-evident here.
“More bespoke and one-off” -  ‘Mcdonald’s started building customized/localized stores a while back so we thought we’d copy that idea.’
“Availability of the interaction of the Barrista” … I got nothing here. It’s English (and he’s a marketer), so he was probably trying to make a point about something.
“The go-forward” - All marketing men of action are legally required to include ‘go-forward’ at least once in a conversation.
“Great coffee messaging” - Ads.
“Our coffee authority” – Starbucks will continue to crush all competition (in an environmentally responsible fashion.)

So Tim, keep up the good work… but get over yourself, it’s just coffee.

Video is a very powerful and effective way to communicate.  We’re going to be seeing more videos like this one.

Brave New Films is an organization at the leading edge of video activism. It creates news magazine style videos that examines / ‘exposes’  a range of political issues. Recently it has turned it’s sights on the ‘socially conscious’ Starbucks. The above video details a variety of anti-union activities that Starbucks has allegedly taken part in recently and it encourages viewers to spread the word. The production values are very good and I’m certain it has Starbuck’s full attention.

In a previous post I talked about how Dominos had used YouTube to respond to a PR crisis it was facing. Domino’s was harmed and the CEO spoke out honestly and emphatically that his company was doing everything it could to make the best of a bad situation.  This new video calls out Starbucks and directly challenges CEO Howard Shultz. Should Starbucks respond to this video with their own video? Yes they should, but in a very different manner than Domino’s had chosen.

Shultz won’t respond directly to the accusations in this video because it’s a discussion he can never ‘win’. Some topics – abortion, gun control, the death penalty etc. are emotionally charged with as many advocates as opponents. Most politicians / business leaders chose to avoid these types of issues wherever possible. Should Starbucks avoid this issue? Of course not – the social media channels are alight with this discussion and it isn’t going to go away. Starbucks has to find a way to communicate its position on employment (unions) without getting sucked into a vortex of angry politics and vitriol (check out the comments on YouTube to get a sense of the passion behind this topic). Starbucks is a business – it would prefer not to have unions operating in its stores – no surprise there. The self-inflicted added burden that Starbucks carries is that it has tried to position itself as a caring and socially consious company. (WalMart, by contrast has never been hobbled by this positioning.)

The timing of this video coincides with a major marketing campaign by Starbucks that attempts to position the company as rethinking and resetting its goals and reaching out to its various constitutiencies. In other words, the timing couldn’t be worse. So what would you do if you were leading Starbucks PR team?

Starbucks is like Apple in many ways. It has a loyal – some would say fanatical – following, it sells a premium product and it differentiates itself on the experience around the product, rather than simply on the specific features/benefits of the product itself.

Apple however, seems to be flourishing (relatively speaking) during these tough economic times whereas Starbucks is searching to find it’s soul (and bottom line) and to remind everyone that there is still something very special about the Sbux experience.

Howard Shultz CEO of Starbucks is seen above in this video posted to the Starbucks YouTube channel. Although the stated audience for this video are the Starbucks ‘partners’ (employees) it is clear that the intent is to announce to the world that Starbucks is reaching out to all of its constituents – customers, prospects, influencers and employees to tell them that something ‘important’ is going on. (Hint – it’s really just a marketing campaign)

Starbucks is supporting a major marketing and advertising program (very unusual for Starbucks) through a number of social media activities such as YouTube video contests and ‘alerting’ twitter followers to watch out for the new campaign. Clearly you have to be a zealot to want to be notified of any one’s new marketing campaign.

The style of the video – honest, comfortable and personal is good – it supports the overall brand image and hints at something important going on. Just the same, after watching the video I can’t help but conclude – so what? I visit Starbucks mostly for off site meetings, the $4 coffee is just the cost of renting the furniture for a half an hour. Starbucks is not a movement or way of life for me no matter how hard they try to make it so.

I acknowledge that selling $4 coffee is tough during tough times. Interestingly one of the employee/partners ( all seemingly mandated to wear black )  mentions in the video that they do indeed offer alternatives to the $4 coffee.  Starbucks cannot and will not be able to compete on price with anyone so I’m not sure mentioning this does them a lot of good.

I think the short term attention will improve their outlook for a time but I can’t help but think this is more than reaching out – it’s almost a cry for help to all the fanboys and girls out there to keep the faith and help to keep the Starbucks experience alive.