BRANdING YOUR mUlTI-mIllION dOllAR cORPORATION

Chapter 35

gIBRAnD n YoUR

MUltI-MIllIon DollAR

CoRPoRAtIon

By riCharD aristarChoVas

Well you have grown this far and success is no longer a stranger. The
brand is established in the eyes of your consumer group and things are
going well. It is no time to relax however, as your key responsibility
now is to at least stay at the top of your game and even move forward to
other consumer groups because (and write this down):

Whether your consumer group is growing or shrinking is just a matter
of time.

Going into the recession, Starbucks had an established brand geared to
satisfy the average consumer with his or her coffee needs. When the
recession (the trigger) hit and this average consumer needed just that, a
cup of coffee to start their day, and realized how much they were pay-
ing, all en masse decided that MacDonald’s $1 something ‘cup of joe’
was just as good.

I am pretty sure the demise of this consumer group wasn’t a huge sur-
prise for Starbucks, and that’s why they so swiftly rebranded this cor-
poration to fit their new main consumer group as well as diversify into
retail sales. Still CEO Howard Shultz and the board must have had to
make some serious decisions that in the end led to Starbucks riding out
the storm and emerging better than ever.