Venti, Non-Fat, Iced Frappacino Storm
Last week, Starbucks launched My Starbucks Idea. Many have likened the social site to Direct2Dell, or more recently, Dell IdeaStorm. I think any brand who creates a forum to sincerely listen and proactively and consistently respond to all types of ideas and/or complaints deserves some applause. The consumer side of me really commends that.
The marketer side of me, also supports the initiative, but notices a fundamental difference between the two corporate forums listed above. Dell’s IdeaStorm fosters communication on product development for items that have a lifecycle once purchased by a consumer, versus a Starbucks purchase and consumption which arguably starts and finishes over the course of thirty minutes. It will be interesting to see if MyStarbucksIdea can offer a sustainable idea-generating community given that very short purchase cycle. Along the same vein, it will also be a challenge for Starbucks to offer ‘acceptable’ solutions to consumer concerns with such a low-price product. I know what you are thinking – a $5 coffee is not ‘low price,’ but in comparison to how a consumer feels about purchasing a vacation, a vehicle or mobile phone service – there isn’t a lot of thought put into the research and consideration phase of the purchase.
This is a huge endeavor for Starbucks; they have to manage the comments and feedback. If they don’t, obviously they will turn away those community members who have placed their trust in the site forum. This ‘pass-fail’ criteria isn’t what excites me as a marketer. I’m interested in seeing if a) the site itself causes enough positive buzz around the brand to increase sales or b) if the ideas generated on the site actually increase traffic and sales. Currently, some of the top “experience” enhancement ideas are loyalty program suggestions, complementary wi-fi requests, and faster ways to order are all being considered by Starbucks management. Kudos to Starbucks, but it will be interesting to see if they can make the site and the community topics sustainable and provide a value proposition beyond the initial launch. I’m going to be the optimist here, and say that they will prevail as long as they ramp up the categorization of the ideas generated and make the community itself a little more user-friendly. In the next phase, they should also look to garner ideas from conversations that are happening in other communities – now that’s a feat.
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Great post Heidi
I think different businesses are better suited for these types of communities (software comes to mind), but I’m hard pressed to think of a company that can’t improve upon their product or service. It is also fun to be able to browse and see what other people have come up with. For example, on the Starbucks site I loved the idea of a sticker lid.
Lid Stickers
While it does take a commitment to managing ideas, I’d say it is hyper efficient when you figure it is helping to harness and prioritize feedback from hundreds of thousands of employees and millions of customers.
Great commentary Heidi…
In 1999 Critical Mass launched a project for P&G called “P&G Advisor” as a component of PG.com that was about enabling consumers to “talk back” to P&G on their products with feedback and ideas on how to improve them. Like Digg and IdeaStorm and MyStarbucksIdea, consumers could vote up or down ideas or add new ones. That tool was based on an ASP product called “Recipio” which later became “Informative”
P&G received thousands of new product and existing product enhancement ideas. While I don’t believe the program is still in place, I do know the conversations they started caused some shifts in how P&G solicits feedback from consumers. In 2000, P&G was named “Marketer of the Century.” Our client at the time wanted them to become “Listener of the Century” for the next 100 years.
I applaud any brand that formalizes their listening methods and encourages brand conversations. I think Starbucks will be effective to the extent they implement or react to the ideas presented, to show they are listening AND acting.
Interestingly, the tool that Starbucks is using is the same tool that Dell is using. It’s delivered as Software as Service from Salesforce.com. They use it to power their own community – ideas.salesforce.com