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This is an insight into youth trends through the eyes of a coffee drinker. Enjoy!
Youth marketing truths in coffee
…I caught up with Kan the next day in Starbucks, Futakotamagawa – a pleasant outskirt of Tokyo where I lived so many years before.
A lot had changed, the old plaza that remained as the last bastion of boutique shops nestled behind an outcrop of Dogwood trees – including a charming Indian restaurant and quirky souvenir store – were concreted over to make way for the chain stores, (another) mega department complex and more of the same.
image courtesy of Starbucks
Starbucks however had changed little – it was still one of the few non-smoking hang outs in Japan and served reasonably expensive coffee. I was no coffee buff, ordering an English breakfast tea but Kan seemed to have learned the Anglo-Japanese patter well. In broken Katakana English he ordered what must have been a 8 dimensional permutation of coffee choice incorporating skinny something, decaff something.
Sometimes the choice in Starbucks is bewildering, “just a tea” I’d say. But the category in which Starbucks competes is fierce. Starbuck’s very success lay in its ability to offer the “3rd place” as CEO Schulz would describe it – ie not work, not the bar – a place where young professionals could hang out and connect.
Looking round I saw a melange of styles and faces – from lonely OL’s (Japanese “office ladies”) reading books to students to young office workers grabbing a breather before the relentless grindstone that awaits the young corporate salaryman.
Here is where Japanese youth met friends, gained a sense of place by watching the world pass by from the window and walked down the street brandishing premium priced coffee. Beyond the traditional Kissaten (coffee shop) aimed at middle aged workers, the family run Isakaya restaurant, McDonald’s and the steps of 7-11, few youth had the “3rd place” in which mould Schulz fashioned the chain.
It’s no coincidence that Starbucks hailed from Seattle – the city with the highest level of inbound migration in the US. That means a lot of young folk detached from their local communities moving to Seattle for a better life but without a natural base to plug into.
That’s a lot of young people without a community looking for a place to belong.
Seattle or Tokyo, there were few differences. Yes the chatter in Tokyo was respectfully low key punctuated only by the backdrop of piped Jazz and the high pitched voices of the service clerks wailing “Irasshaimase!” (lit: “welcome”), but this was the global truth of youth similarities overcoming differences bearing out. One student wore a Real Madrid shirt emblazoned with “David Beckham” on the back, the “office lady” on the table next read Japanese cosmo fronted by Angeline Jolie whilst fingering her Louis Vuitton handbag.
The Starbucks rise to fame was due to the company’s ability to embody the 2 key drivers of consumer behaviour – 1) the need to belong and 2) the need to be significant. Timeless and culturally independent, my travels and research have only confirmed that we are more similar than we care to believe, yet when we try to be “clever” about our marketing – we end up chasing trends, technologies and forgetting the basics.
Consider this – what social currency does your brand offer youth? And I’m hoping your answer doesn’t start with “it’s multiplayer” or “it’s social media“.
Marketers waste so much time and money chasing trends – “What’s the next big thing in mobile?” they often misguidedly ask. Well, the next big thing is the same as the last big thing – it’s the application that fulfils these 2 key drivers day in day out. Despite its recent decline, Starbucks was as iconic a brand as MTV was in the 90s and Levis in the 80s – all offering unbounded social currency for their young consumers.
image courtesy of Flickr
When young professionals walk down the street holding a cup of coffee with the highly visible Starbucks branding they’re sending out a subtle signal that they can regularly afford the $4-$5 for a cup of coffee, need the fuel for their busy lives and therefore to some degree (in their own reckoning) must be significant. Their choice of coffee, the countless permutations and the manner of consumption are all about displaying significance to the wider peer group and the premises in which this takes place are itself the most tangible social network youth have.
Kan’s phone rang. I’m at “Staba” he said in Japanese (Staba being the local colloquialization of the brand) and snapped the handset back shut in an obviously well-rehearsed move for impact. With the meeting point set, the swarm began to descend on the coffee house.
As long as Starbucks is able to deliver on these drivers as consumer needs, perceptions and competition evolves, it will continue to be successful… but as Toynbee wrote in his historical works “nothing fails like success”.
Technorati Tags: youth marketing, mobile youth, global swarming, japan, coffee, starbucks, social
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