Marketing Strategy > Brand + Product

We can briefly summarize the brand as a trade name. Whether you are a product manufacturer, a service provider, a famous athlete or an artist. All actions taken with commercial expectations (production, service, labor, art, etc.) need an adjective or noun to distinguish your product from others in the target market. Today, the scope of "Branding" has gone beyond the production and service sectors, pushing even athletes and artists to turn their names into a brand.

You have the "product" and the "brand" that distinguishes and defines this product from others. So, is it enough? Maybe yes, maybe no…

If you have big dreams and endless creative ideas like Howard Schultz, the answer is no. The idea of selling the same product at a higher price in a saturated market, which has become an integral part of life in some countries and defined as a cultural element, is not an adventure that everyone can pursue. And if I were to say that while doing this, you would determine your own rules and create a new segment and way of doing business, I think many of you would line up to throw the adjective "dreamer" in our faces with a sarcastic prejudice.

In this article, I will not do brand glorification, a phoenix drama arising from difficulties, or translations of articles written about it. I will share the importance of Marketing Strategy with real examples.

This time, let's do something differently and serve the dessert first: Schultz grew the brand, which he bought in 1987 with $1.3 million in revenue, 70 times in just 5 years with a correct marketing strategy, and increased its revenues to $73.5 million in 1992. If you like dessert, we can start dinner.

In 1971, Starbucks started out as a brand selling coffee beans in packages by three coffee lovers, positioning a product no different than legumes to the people of Seattle, in a depressing city like Seattle, where the rain does not stop easily. Two teachers and a writer were pursuing the motto of "good coffee" rather than commercial concerns. Schultz, an employee of Starbucks' equipment suppliers, could smell the potential when he drank a cup of coffee without milk and sugar, which he tried on his first visit. Although he explained that he could take this brand and product much further with the steps to be taken in sales and marketing strategy, the company owners, who wanted to stay in the safe comfort zone, were not interested in hiring Schultz. The name and logo of the brand, based on wavy seas and Moby Dick, whetted Howard's appetite for being a captain, and by continuing his insistence, he managed to get himself on board as an employee of the company after a while.

Inspired by Italy and Italian culture, the idea of making Starbucks an extension of customers' homes instead of selling coffee beans in bags was the first spark that ignited the fuse. However, Starbucks' owners were not interested in this marketing strategy and saw Howard as "overly excited".

Howard, who did not give up on his idea, eventually found the opportunity to realize this idea under the Il Giornale brand, although not under the Starbucks brand, with the support of investors. Founded in 1985, Il Giornale acquired Starbucks for approximately $4m in 1987 when Starbucks partners decided to sell their brand.

The brand's value in 2023 was $53.4 billion!

His next marketing strategy was to position the qualified employees working in the shops as masters of the art of coffee making and to focus on allowing customers to drink special brewed coffee from these master hands before going to work in the morning. In this way, he was able to surpass the coffee machines found in almost every house or roadside gas station and the coffee shops in every block doing the same job by selling the same product.

Long story short: The product was not a gem and the brand was neither unrivaled nor had a dominant invention or product since 1971. So how does this company leave others behind with this product and become the undisputed market leader?

No matter what you sell, where you sell it or position it, if you don't have a strong and revolutionary marketing strategy and, of course, the ability to implement it, you will be no different from others.

Winning formula: Marketing Strategy > Product + Brand

G?khan Kaim