Nov
24
the holidays
Posted by: bonnieyeung | November 24, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Ahhhh, winter, the holidays, christmas.. my (and i assume a lot of other people’s) favorite time of year. Even the grumpiest person couldn’t resist the traditional Christmas songs, the most delicious holiday aromas or the masses of joyous people prancing around in a good mood.
Another perk of the holidays comes in the shape of paper cups. Let’s look at Starbucks and Tim Hortons as an example. Starbuck’s 3 Holiday Drinks. Every year, they market their 3 drinks like there’s no tomorrow, banners, posters etc and they send out weekly newsletters / ads to their current customer list. Just this weekend, Starbucks held a “buy-1-holiday-drink-get-1-free” even (from friday to sunday, 2pm – 5pm only), and people flocked to their local Starbucks (let’s be honest, it’s never a long treck, there’s a Starbucks on every corner); to try the holiday beverage. But, could somebody please tell me what’s so special about these 3 drinks in particular? They are nothing but a regular cup of joe, but with a lot of “holiday-themed” syrup, whipped cream on top, oh ya and some sprinkles of cinnamon or spice. The package it comes in is also one of its main selling points. Now I’m quoting one of my friends when I heard her say,”Oooooo, a red holiday cup! It’s not the usual plain white paper cup!”
Starbucks marketing strategy is proven to work. The holidays brings about a lot of marketing campaigns for sure. I think if there was a time to splurge on yourself or your loved ones, it would be during the holidays, when people’s opinion of the value of thei money changes. People are willing to buy a around $4 cup of holiday-flavored drink when they wouldn’t usually have during another time of year. By promoting their bright red cups which shows illustrations of silouettes of classic winter time scenes, and snow, Starbucks is selling the mood, the holiday cheer to people in the form of cups of coffee.
So even though I sound slightly skeptical of Starbucks marketing efforts in promoting a cup of coffee with no special tangible value to it, I have fallen victim to their target of holiday-loving market group. Goodbye for now, as I go and pay a little over $5 for a nice hot cup of Eggnog Latte (aka. a trillion calories)
