Caribou Coffee: Anti-Starbucks no longer
Posted on | March 8, 2010 | No Comments
Author:
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Key Points:
1. Caribou Coffee has had better luck riding out the Great Recession than its larger rival Starbucks, and seems antsy to get out from under Starbucks’ shadow.
2. With its recent rebrand, Caribou takes the risky step of defining itself on its own terms – with a seize the day attitude and explorer archetype.
3. It was likely the right time for the company; in order to grow beyond its Midwestern roots, Caribou needed to break free.
I am half Cuban.
As such, I take my coffee very seriously. Truth be told, I am more likely to be found working in a Caribou or Starbucks than in my Woodbury office. Perhaps sadly for my speeding heart rhythm, I know of what I speak.
And speaking of coffee houses, the latter has struggled mightily from its peak in the middle of the decade. The “Great Recession” was a painful kick in the pants to the Starbucks’ empire. The company wobbled as its share price fell, margins eroded, and McDonald’s thumped it in taste tests.
Caribou Coffee, on the other hand, seems to have bounced back from recent economic hardship (and its own set of uncertainties) with vigor. Its recent rebranding effort shows a newfound swagger at the Minneapolis-based chain. The fresh creative sports a sleeker – almost “New York” – sort of look that stands in stark contrast to its quite pedestrian – quite “Minnesota” – history.
But like it or not, the Caribou brand was tied to the success (or failure, but mostly success) of Starbucks brand since the beginning. Starbucks was the dominant player – Caribou the little known #2. And it defined itself that way; Caribou was everything Starbucks was not. It proved an effective technique to get the company off the ground, but it remains 5% Starbucks’ size. Clearly, it was time to move on.
To help illustrate, I assembled a quick reference chart.
The change in creative aside (enough’s been made of that – you either like it or you don’t), understand how big of deal it is for a coffee house Caribou’s size to go through any sort of rebranding effort. The logistics (even at a relatively small 500-plus stores) is daunting, not to mention expensive.
Since its beginnings, Caribou reached out to the everyday audience. Someone who wants to “escape from the daily grind”. Caribou was never a place to be seen, but rather a place to relax. It was the place everyday people could get the best in coffee. My non-Midwestern friends always described Caribou as a bit campy, but that was its charm. And during the worst recession in decades, customers largely stuck by the company – and it’s pricing.
However, Caribou’s Midwestern sensibility could only take it so far.
To move beyond its position in the marketplace, Caribou needed to stop defining itself for what it was not, and begin to strike out on its own.
Of all the different ways to look at the recent move, I think the most appropriate is using Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson’s cultural archetypes. Think of an archetype as powerful cultural shorthand. By associating your brand with an archetype, you can cut right to the chase with messaging, and people will fill in the details from their own cultural context. (The Harley Davidson “outlaw” and Nike “hero” are two of many great examples).
Whatever Caribou may have wanted to communicate before, it clearly personified the “average guy” or “average gal” archetype. Caribou was the upscale coffee shop for the rest of us. The company dipped into its “Alaska” origin story to poke fun at using beaver pelts for currency, outfitted its stores in warm wood, and never needed to “train” its staff to be Minnesota nice.
Starbucks, by contrast, was “the ruler” – in other words, going to Starbucks made you feel cool, elite, and special. (Some might disagree, but I think this nails it. Starbucks today is more about elitism than it is about “discovering new coffees and music”, although an argument could be made for that).
Caribou is finally moving – with this rebrand I think – to the “explorer” archetype (akin to The North Face or Jeep vehicles). It is focusing much more on its “Life is short. Stay awake for it.” carpe diem anthem.
And that makes sense for Caribou. I think of it as more of a solidification than an outright change – I get the sense Caribou always wanted to personify the “explorer”, but could never quite get out from under Starbucks shadow far enough to pull it off. Pretty natural move.
Natural, but risky.
Changing archetypes is not a “one day” sort of transition. It can take years. Caribou has built a base of customers who see it (perhaps) a different way. Is Caribou the “relax from the grind, Midwest sensibility” place or the “I’m going to get up in your face with how cool I am” place? Are they now “too hip” for the everyday customer type they’ve cultivated?
Perhaps.
But the risk seems appropriate.
As Caribou needs to expand into new markets – particularly fast-growth, dense, urban, and international markets – the ah-shucks Midwestern everyman image may not cut it.
All comes down to this: Caribou seemed anxious to leave the protection of the Starbucks nest. It has kicked itself out, and now must fly on its own.
Only time will tell if it’s ready.
Related Links:
Amazon.com: “The Hero and the Outlaw”
“Official” explanation of the Caribou creative work
Who wants to see the killer killer whale?
Posted on | March 1, 2010 | No Comments
Author:
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Key Points:
1. The death of orca trainer Dawn Brancheau at the Orlando Seaworld theme park speaks to the danger of working closely with these whales.
2. Our first instinct might be to think the net economic effect of the accident would be profoundly negative on Seaworld – people would not want to visit the park.
3. But I am not sure that will be true – behavioral psychology seems to indicate that for this type of tragedy, park visits may actually increase.
By now, we all know the story.
On February 24, 2010, in front of an auditorium of horrified onlookers at Seaworld’s Orlando theme park, the massive alpha male orca whale “Tilikum” pulled veteran trainer Dawn Brancheau underwater by her ponytail, shaking her violently in his jaws.
She was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.
Of course, there is the human tragedy. Our sympathies must go out to Dawn’s immediate family and her extended family of fellow trainers. And of course, there is a systemic tragedy. Seaworld officials must now reconstruct the circumstances leading up to the accident in order to try to find ways to minimize future risk. Certainly, there is a tragedy for those who witnessed the event – children especially – who must search for their own way to rationalize the horror they saw. Finally, there is what will become of the giant (and now thrice identified human-killer) male orca. For now, he stays.
But as important as all of those questions are, and how they must take primacy, there is one last question, this one for Seaworld the business: What will this tragedy mean for attendance figures at the Orlando theme park?
The Florida tourism industry is fiercely competitive; will visitors choose a Disney park instead? More problematic for the business, will visitors shy away from other Seaworld parks in other areas of the country?
Our snap judgement may be to answer, “Yes”, visitors are likely to be turned off by an accident like this, and will choose another destination for their vacation. People choose a Seaworld to escape from the drudgery – and the horror – of everyday life. Dawn’s death at the hands of a (supposedly) trained orca is a stark reminder of what tourists would want to avoid.
But I am not certain our immediate assessment is correct.
A couple of quick observations: First, albeit sadly, Seaworld has garnered significant free publicity. More specifically, coverage has focused attention on the training and handling of the theme park’s stay attraction – the strikingly beautiful orca whales and the park’s signature “Believe” show. Both search volume and news tracking volume confirm what we already have experienced in popular media.
Second, again sadly, a story like this breaks the clutter of everyday news. Job losses, health care reform, war, and politics – important certainly, but we can get lost in the everyday monotony. But the thought of an eight ton whale dragging a trainer to her death has a way of gripping the mind – and the news cycle.
But I think we can better understand the economic effect of accidents on theme parks and vacation destinations using this handy thought model I’ve assembled regarding the perception of danger stemming from the accident situation.
On the y (vertical) axis, we chart the perceived excitement or novelty of the danger the accident caused from “low” to “high”. Next, on the x (horizontal) axis, we chart the perceived likelihood of that dangerous situation happening to you personally. In both cases perception is critical, not a rational calculation of risk factors.
When we do that, a four-part grid emerges that can help us understand not only what might happen at Seaworld, but the economic impact of other accidents as well.
In the bottom left quadrant, we have a low perceived novelty level of the danger as well as a low perceived likelihood the same fate might befall us. An example might be a “slip and fall” incident. The predicted net effect would be a collective “ho-hum”; an accident in this category would be unlikely to materially impact attendance.
Let’s move to the opposite extreme in the top right corner: A highly tantalizing accident with a high perceived likelihood of finding yourself in the same position. A roller coaster derailment is a keen example. The thought of plunging 10 stories to your demise in a tiny train car will get your attention. And it is not as if you haven’t ridden that roller coaster. It could happen! But for all the perceived risk, the net predicted effect would be neutral as well. And this is what we see with theme park accidents of this type – they repel one type of person and attract another.
Move straight down (to the bottom left quadrant) and we get relatively boring “accidents” where there is a strong perceived risk of personally experiencing the problem. I think this can help explain the stress on cruise ship attendance whenever there is an outbreak of food borne illness on ship. The stomach flu is no fun to experience, but isn’t out of the realm of consciousness for most people; add to that the high perceived likelihood that you’ll manage to pick up the virus on a confined cruise ship, and you get a classic avoidance response. Prediction: Net decrease in attendance.
Finally, we get to the top left quadrant of the chart, the place where I believe Seaworld’s accident falls. As discussed, an orca attack is highly unusual and spectacular, but the chance you personally will be dragged into the water is quite low (unless you’re the blindingly stupid fool who decided to take an after hours swim in an orca tank in Canada a few years back). In other words, there is a sort of voyeuristic effect: We want to have a chance to witness something like that. Net predicted effect: An attendance boost.
It’s why we watch horror movies. It’s why we slow down to gawk when we see a crash on the freeway. It’s why were glued to our television during a natural disaster.
For good or for ill, that just seems to be how we’re wired.
Of course, under no circumstances, should this thought model be interpreted as prescriptive of how to boost theme park attendance, but it does indicate that Seaworld doesn’t need to worry about short-term economics.
I think Seaworld has other concerns on its mind right now. As it should.
Related Links:
Seaworld Information
Seaworld Blog
ACS Killer Whale Facts
Tags: Dawn Brancheau > economic imapct of accidents > orca > Seaworld
“Branding CI: Challenges and Opportunities”
Posted on | February 27, 2010 | No Comments
SCIP: Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals
“Branding CI: Challenges and Opportunities”
As it appears in the January-March 2010 issue of CI Magazine
Could the “Great Recession” be just the opportunity the industry needs to solidify its brand position?
Abstract: As professionals in competitive intelligence (CI) work to build or reposition their own brand identity, they often find that they have little direct control in shaping their collective destiny. The brand for any industry – CI included – is a sum of the individual actions of its professionals, each with individual motivations, in a sort of micro-society. With that in mind, we can use social psychology models to help us understand the dynamics at play, why it is so difficult to change an industry brand, and how to spot those rare transformational opportunities when they present themselves. By understanding those mechanics, it opens the door for CI professionals to take control of their collective brand, and put the principle of disruptive innovation to work to their advantage.
Visit www.scip.org for more information.
Tags: CI Magazine > competitive intelligence > industry branding > Jason Voiovich > SCIP
Failure By Design: Crisis Management Pecha Kucha Presentation
Posted on | February 25, 2010 | No Comments
Why what we are doing in corporate crisis management isn’t working . . . and what submarines, forest fires, and the 16th century English navy can teach us. [Originally presented a Pecha Kucha Night Minneapolis, February 20, 2010]
Barabasi, Foursquare, and the brave new world of location marketing
Posted on | February 22, 2010 | No Comments
Author:
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Key Points:
1. Barabási and his colleagues at Northeastern University studied cell phone users in Europe, finding individual’s day-to-day movements were predictable 66-80% of the time.
2. If we combine the thinking behind this study with location-based social networks such as Foursquare and a variety of location-sensitive smart-phone apps, we can see the implications for marketing.
3. The theoretical foundation for movement predictability should give marketers the justification they need to begin expanding location-based marketing exponentially.
You are so predictable.
Specifically, you are so predictable 93% of the time. Albert-László Barabási and his colleagues at the Center for Complex Network Research at Northeastern University in Boston recently published a study in the journal Science that tracked data from over 50,000 cell phone users in a European market.
The results of the study fly in the face of what we may like to think of ourselves, and perhaps confirm what my wife always reminds me: I am not the free spirit I wish I was.
I’ve summarized some of the key findings in the chart below:
The methodology was quite ingenious. Each time a cell phone connects to the network, it must relay through a geographically nearby tower. The cell phone company needs to track that information in order to determine usage patterns, capacity issues, and maintenance schedules. Data on specific names and phone numbers is irrelevant. Using the raw data (and some wonderfully fun regression analysis), Barabási found the model could predict the average person’s whereabouts 70-80% of the time on any given day. Overall theoretical limit of predictability: His model can peg us over 93% of the time.
Paradoxically, the closer you live to your workplace, the slightly more random people tend to be (hypothesis: people have the extra time to be impulsive). Most surprisingly, unpredictable people are largely absent from the population. So just when I thought only I was boring, it turns out, we are all boring.
I feel better.
Of course, burglars have known this for generations, but I’ll let that go. And just to debunk the thought process that cynically says Barabási simply articulated the obvious, understand that while we may have known this to be true intuitively, we never had the data to do anything with it.
Thanks for 5 billion cell phone subscriptions worldwide, now we do.
Barabási lays out a number of potential implications he thinks are the most important: transportation engineering, public health, and urban planning to name three.
While I don’t dispute the benefits, there’s one other immutable force of human behavior: The drive of marketers to make money. And we can act faster than a new light rail line can be built.
How might we do that?
Have you heard of Foursquare?
No, not the game we played as kids, the social networking service.
Think of Foursquare as location-based Twitter. When you arrive at a location, you can use Foursquare to “check in” to that place. The more you do it, the more “rewards” you earn – up to and including being the “mayor” of a particular location. (A colleague of mine happens to be the “mayor” of Union Depot in St. Paul.)
As of January, the service featured about 275,000 registered users.
Now, I have heard the complaints from the social media-debunkers. Most assertively, they claim the number of active social media users is quite small, and that traditional marketing and advertising techniques reach much larger audiences. They cite recent statistics that only about 30,000 people Tweeted during the SuperBowl, whereas the television audience went well into 9 figures.
Understood, and agreed.
But think for a second about what the combination of Barabási’s study and Foursquare means for marketers. Foursquare only has about 275,000 users, all having fun telling you where they are at a given moment. From a “traditional” marketing perspective, that wouldn’t tell me much – it would only tell me where that small sub-segment was at any given time. But what if I also knew that I could use human predictability metrics and begin to generalize that small population to the much larger whole.
Now we’re talking.
Put that together with the iPhone and Blackberry applications we already freely allow to track our movements via GPS, and it’s clear we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface.
With studies like Barabási’s forming the foundation for a high degree of certainty, expect marketers to begin putting up serious dollars very soon.
Related Links:
“Limits of Predictability in Human Mobility” Study FAQ
Science Mag Abstract: Limits of Predictability in Human Mobility
Pre-order Barabási’s book
Learn about Foursquare
Tags: Barabasi > Foursquare > location marketing
3/50, Local Purchasing, and Irrational Behavior
Posted on | February 19, 2010 | No Comments
Twin Cities native Cinda Baxter made waves a year ago when she started a small “viral” counter to Oprah’s exortation to “stop all unnecessary spending” in response to the economic meltdown. Baxter’s solution was different: Instead of “stopping spending”, which is in and of itself irrational, punitive, and unsustainable, she suggested redirecting those dollars to local businesses. In essence, the “3/50″ program encouraged shoppers to choose three local businesses and spend $50 at each one each month. If enough people did that, it would support the local economy and keep those jobs alive.
Valiant, certainly buzz-worthy, and clearly riding a wave of “buy local” sentiment.
But color my cautious about the long-term effectiveness of the campaign. Of course, it’s getting a lot of talk now, but as the economy recovers (and it will), will people still decide they should support small, local businesses, when larger chains offer lower prices, more predictable products and services, and stronger advertising? That’s what makes national chains, well, national. They are good at delivering products and services a lot of people want, very efficiently.
I’ll put this in my “wait and see a year from now” file…
Tags: 3/50 > Buy local > Cinda Baxter
The Japanese Hummer Green Machine
Posted on | February 18, 2010 | 1 Comment
You’ve got to love the irony of this situation. Now that the Hummer brand has been sold to China, it’s seeing a sales boom in Japan. Specifically the smaller H3 model, which in Japan qualifies for a “green” tax credit for fuel efficiency for large vehicles.
It’s only possible because in Japan Hummer never got the “fuel hog” label slapped on its brand image. Stateside, that was just too hard to overcome, and sales of the H3 never measured up to GM’s expectations. How’s that for a lesson in international brand dynamics?
Jared’s gotten faaaaaaat!
Posted on | February 17, 2010 | No Comments
Oh, poor Jared. Tis the life of an unlikely celebrity. The paparazzi caught the Subway spokesperson with an extra 40 lbs. around the middle. Methinks he might have been off the veggie sub diet as of late.
In all seriousness, Ad Age highlights the stickiness of the situation. Recent FTC rule changes regarding the use of endorsements and testimonials essentially say that if Subway wants to keep using Jared in its advertising (and they likely do – he’s been arguably the most successful sponsorship in recent decades) they’ll need to come clean that he’s packed on the pounds and revise their creative.
Of course, this could be a boon to Subway as well. Imagine a campaign in which Jared admits his weakness, shows he’s fallen off the wagon (who among us hasn’t?), and we track his progress “back to health” perhaps using social media to follow along?
We’ll see what happens…
Who wants a watered-down Bimmer?
Posted on | February 16, 2010 | No Comments
Chalk BMW up as one more automaker unsure of what to position itself in “the new economic reality”. Instead of the brilliantly differentiated “Ultimate Driving Machine”, the storied German nameplate will now tout “Joy” as its driving force. Certainly, I don’t argue BMW could pay off the Joy claim with tangible benefits, and it is certainly better than Porsche’’s effort to talk “financing options”, but doesn’t this seem a bit like slumming for a Bimmer? Subaru can pull off “Love” reasonably well, but talk to any BMW owner – they bought one (and paid more for it) for performance. Period. It speaks to how well BMW has driven the concept home over the past 20+ years.
Quick prediction: Two years from now, a new CEO or CMO will say something to the effect of “what were they thinking” and “get back to BMW’s roots”.
The Politics of Personal Branding
Posted on | February 15, 2010 | 7 Comments
Author:
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Key Points:
1. Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter blur the boundary between professional and personal lives.
2. If we consider our professional selves as personal brands, we must be very careful where that boundary lies and what we want people to see.
3. Like it or not, we must take a strategic branding approach to both our professional and personal communication or we risk unintended (and disproportionately negative) consequences.
I am about to relate an uncomfortable situation.
It’s personal, but not inappropriate, and it does relate to personal brand development and positioning. It’s as much prescriptive (I think) as it was therapeutic to write. Frankly, I have struggled with how to think about this issue for some time.
The situation relates to a former professional colleague of mine from nearly 10 years past. He’s been out of work for over a year, and has taken the smart step of reaching out to his professional connections to help him navigate the job market. Being at the peak of his earnings potential and career, opportunities don’t present themselves every day.
Each connection is critical for him.
During the time he has been (presumably) at home, he’s taken to distributing (en masse via email and social networks) articles of a certain extreme political persuasion. The specifics are irrelevant, as is the political bent, but needless to say, we do not see eye to eye. However, out of my respect for the professional connection, I let the first incident go. But it didn’t stop at one. They kept coming. And I kept ignoring.
But the longer it happened, the longer I came to wonder what affect his choice in communication might have on his personal brand image – and not so indirectly, his job search success. So I did what any marketing type would do in order to answer that question: I conducted a targeting analysis.
I wanted to answer a simple question: What professional benefit (or risk) might be posed my communicating your personal – and extreme – political views to a professional audience? Read more
Tags: job search > Personal Branding > professional networking > social networking
About
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Phone: 651.209.2778
Principal and co-founder of Ecra Creative Group, a Minneapolis, MN based creative services firm specializing in brand development, reputation process management, naming/trademark, and product launches to drive measurable business results.
