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September 29, 2009
Starbucks VIA Ready Brew Faces an Instant Product Naming Problem
Today Starbucks will start offering its instant coffee brand called VIA Ready Brew to customers across the United States and Canada.
I noted the appearance of VIA earlier this year in their Seattle and Chicago shops and I was extremely skeptical. I remain so.
Although, I would like to somewhat water down (excuse the pun) my earlier skepticism now that I have had some time to think about this development.
At first glance, Starbucks selling instant coffee is a marketing blunder - Starbucks is about high end coffee, not the mix stuff.
However, Starbucks might actually pull this off if they can overcome two challenges.
The first is, of course, a naming issue.
"Via" means "to go" or "the way," which is in fact a strong product name.
The problem is the category name "instant coffee." While Europeans like the stuff, Americans see it as cheap and bad-tasting.
Starbucks has tried to move away from the "instant coffee" label by referring to VIA, which comes in single serving cylindrical packages, as "Ready Brew."
The problem is not the coffee, people. It's the negative associations attached to the instant coffee category name. And if anyone else but Starbucks were attempting this, I'd say that getting around it is pretty much impossible.
The thing is, Starbucks is, for most people, the group that got us to drink things like Ventis and Frappuccinos, and made us feel privileged to fork over big bucks for it. Getting us to call instant coffee Ready Brew should be pretty easy for them (at least you can pronounce it).
They are not selling instant coffee, they are selling a portable Starbucks experience.
The second problem should be a bit easier to solve. The blogosphere is filled with snarky comments about the price of the stuff (a buck a cup). One reviewer says primly that that is "over 10 times the price of other instants, which come in at closer to 8 cents a cup."
Well, I can recall when drip coffee in a restaurant was less than a buck. Starbucks was the one who changed that. They've been happily charging us a fortune for coffee that we can make at home for a fraction of the price for over a decade.
A buck a cup? Heck, for Starbucks fans, that's a bargain.
Technorati Tags: Starbucks Brand, Starbucks Via, Coffee Product Naming, Via Ready Brew, Instant Coffee Branding
Posted by William Lozito at September 29, 2009 8:08 AM
Posted to Beverages | Brand Naming | Branding | Industry | Marketing | Naming | Product Naming
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts, William. It will certainly be interesting to see how Via is going to perform. The name is very appropriate, although this morning it was brought to my attention that it does not solely come from the meaning of the word, but rather from the name of the first head of research and development at Starbucks, Don Valencia, who initiated the development work on the instant coffee formula 20 years ago.
I think Starbucks can pull this off like no one else could, if the product indeed is as good as Schultz says, especially because it is only positioned as the endorser of the Via brand. A larger question here is whether there is demand for it; the ease with which Americans buy a coffee on the go might have slowed down due to the recession, but is there an instant coffee (Ready Brew) culture and would these people go for the quality and higher price from Starbucks?
You have to wonder if this is the next volley in the breakfast wars with McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts--Starbucks elevates coffee and roasts beans, so DD starts making lattes and roasting beans, prices go higher, McDonald's wants in, McDonald's makes lattes, Starbucks makes breakfast sandwiches, McDonald's coffee gets market share, Starbucks lowers prices to compete, DD offers breakfast sandwiches, so Starbucks goes one more than either DD or McDonald's.
Starbucks might be selling a portable Starbucks experience, but they're really advancing the trenches in the breakfast wars by being even less exclusive. Of the other two players, I'd say DD is the next to follow.