Reinventing Coffee.

The Starbucks Instant Blue Ocean Strategy.

Starbucks is a Blue Ocean Strategy that created the “third place” (home, work and Starbucks!) by taking the old idea of a “mom and pop” coffee shop and combining it with the comfortable, open atmosphere of a modern hotel lobby.

Coffee shop customers usually are local folks not interested in having conversations. In the lobby of a modern hotel, it is much easier to start a conversation; Starbucks combined good coffee with comfortable, friendly locations to sell coffee. By changing the atmosphere in which coffee is sold, Starbucks created an uncontested market and made the competition irrelevant. Starbucks “created and captured new demand”.

Starbucks has launched a new Blue Ocean Strategy with the introduction of their VIA Instant coffee. Instant coffee is an old, boring category known for its bitter taste. In fact, research indicates that a large majority of adults under the age of 40 have never tried instant coffee. Starbucks reinvented this category by discovering that non-customers who could not afford a $4 latte, did not have time to stand in line or did not enjoy the Starbucks “conversation” experience would consider drinking an easy to brew Starbucks product in their office, home or on the road. Starbucks packaged VIA in easy to carry, easy to open mini-packets.

By upping the value (Starbucks quality coffee on the run whenever you want it) and lowering costs (a coffee shop in a mini-packet), VIA is a true Blue Ocean Strategy.

Want to see how you can put Blue Ocean Strategy for work for you? Contact us today.