Starbucks has lost profit in these hard economic times due to cost competitors like McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts. They have closed 600 stores in the past two years. They are now turning to Seattle’s Best, a company Starbucks acquired in 2003 to boost their revenue.
Starbucks is expanding the Seattle’s Best brand to more than 30,000 locations by September of this year. They currently sale the brand in approximately 3,000 locations. Seattle’s Best will be available at Burger King, Subway, AMC movie theaters, Alaskan Airlines, Border’s Bookstore, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, convenience stores, supermarkets, kiosks and vending machines, just to name a few.
Starbucks will also be giving Seattle’s Best a new logo and slogan. The logo will retain the red color to ensure some continuity for consumers. The slogan will be “Great Coffee Everywhere”.
To celebrate the Seattle’s Best relaunch, Starbucks sent a team of “red-capped invaders” to scale the Starbucks headquarters building in Seattle and “stealthily replace the famous ‘siren’ atop the clock tower with the new Seattle’s Best Coffee logo.”
Starbucks’ press team said the intention was simple: “To put Seattle’s Best on the map as the universal symbol for great coffee.” As symbolic gestures go, it doesn’t get much clearer than that.
Starbucks feels that the Seattle’s Best brand will put them on a more even footing with the lower priced coffee competitors like McDonald’s.
