Essays on Starbucks’

        The customer’s perceptions play an important role in any business. In Starbucks’ case study, high-quality coffee that provided by the company has created an intense influence on the customers’ buying behavior (Newman and Cullen). Ever since Starbucks was founded by Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker, and Zev Siegl in Seattle’s Pike Place Market in 1971, the company has always placed quality as its top and main priority. This has proven by how Starbucks always aims to provide the best quality of ingredients, along with brewing equipment to make sure that every single customer would experience the most pleasurable coffee moments.

            To achieve the best customers’ perceptions, Starbucks has been changing its logo several times. The story behind the logo of Starbucks starts in the year of 1971. At the start, the logo of Starbucks was a seductive Siren, which gained many complaints. Later on, Starbucks modified its logo by using delivery trucks, which became problematic due to the logo was presented on a huge gage on the trucks. Then, when Howard Schultz came up as its CEO in the year of 1986, he changed the logo again and restyled Siren’s hair to cover up her mermaid’s body.

        A few years later, between 1992-2011, the next Starbucks’ logo again changed and launched on every single cup of Starbucks’ coffee that also made the customers feeling proud to carry it along. Thus, the logo is really able to make different perceptions from its customers regarding the brand of Starbucks. In addition to this, a point that cannot deny that Starbucks nowadays has become an exclusive brand in the international market due to the perceptions of its customers as well. Then again, these positive perceptions gained by Starbucks from its unique and exclusive logo.

Attitudes & Attitude Formation on Starbucks’

        The original founders of Starbucks could be considered as passionate people around coffee. Their main mission actually was not to gain any profits, but rather to educate their customers about the luxury and delight of the world-class coffee that they provide. They also desire to give an amazing knowledge for their customers about the brewing way of coffee and also about how to maximize the high quality of the coffee itself. The three founders of Starbucks were never eventually inspired to shape the business realm. They are basically the type of people who loves to hang out for hours with others who had the same and sincere interest in figuring out about the greatest type of coffee across the world. This attitude then spread out to Howard Schultz and other employees in Starbucks.

        However, Schultz is of the idea that if we would offer a product that customers are not familiar to, which is something beyond superior to a product that they could ever imagine, then the company needs time to develop their palettes. Furthermore, he also has a view that by educating the customers, we could shape a discovery sense along with the delight and loyalty from the customers that ultimately, would able to bond the customers with Starbucks.

        Slowly but sure, Schultz changes the image of Starbucks, and make sure that the company is not only educating its customers about high-quality coffee. Instead, Starbucks is also educated its customers on how to enjoy and delight the coffee itself. By changing the attitude of the company, Starbucks has also formatted the attitude of customers toward its brand. Nowadays, we can see how people view Starbucks not only as a lecturer of coffee for its customers. More than that, the company has become a lecturer of how the customers around the world should enjoy their delight experience in consuming their coffee.

        Reference groups describe as one or further individuals that any individual or company uses as a foundation to compare or point out the reference in shaping both affective and cognitive responses, as well as performing behaviors. Reference groups are able to expose any individual toward new and different behaviors and lifestyles. These groups create densities meant for conformity that might impact the real product along with the brand options. The customers use informal groups as a basic source to get accurate information about products. In fact, the customers are also using informal groups as a structure of reference in evaluating the product as well (Shareef, Mukerji and Dwivedi).

        In the case of Starbucks, the company took part in a growing movement to restrict single-use plastic straw in 2018. Starbucks was also announced that the company would remove this type of straws from all of its stores through 2020. The reason behind this is due to an article which written and published by the conservative Reason Foundation, which declared that the Nitro lids Starbucks would able to create a broad use for plastic more than a mixture of plastic straws and recent lids that the company has. Numbers of social media users also have acknowledged that Starbucks’ Nitro lids are thicker and might harm the environment (Mahdawi).

        By doing this, Starbucks’ case has proven that the references groups and social media could really influence on the consumers' behaviors toward its products. The company seems really realizes that it could also able to affect its brand image in front of the loyal customers. This is aligned with a theory which mentioned that the reference groups are used in advertising outcomes in enhanced brand responsiveness since these groups have the ability to drag the attention from the public by using their popularity.