Marketing Meets Accounting: Starbucks

Starbucks (SBUX) has recently announced an addition to its beverage menu for its customers. Currently, Starbucks sells Frappuccinos in a variety of flavours and sizes. The smallest size available is a tall, which is equivalent to 12 ounces. This size contain 270 calories and 17% of your daily fat needs. Moving forward, Starbucks plans to add another size to their Frappuccino offering. Specifically, they plan to introduce the 10 ounce mini-Frappuccino.

From a marketing perspective, the mini Frappuccinos offer a healthier and cheaper alternative compared to the 12 ounce size. The 10 ounce Frappuccino contains 50 less calories and is 30 cents cheaper than the tall size. I believe in today’s health conscious world, Starbucks will strike a cord with the consumers with this new initiative.

“Starbucks”

However, it is clear that Starbucks has an ulterior motive. Currently, the Frappuccino sales bring in $2 billion in annual sales to this public company. Starbucks is hopeful that their new Frappuccino offering will provide the impetus for increased sales of the product.

Therefore, this is a good example of marketing meeting accounting. If successful, I believe that Starbucks, among others, will employ this strategy for the betterment of both the consumer and the bottom line of the corporation.

Work Cited:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-09-17/starbucks-tests-a-slightly-smaller-frappuccino?campaign_id=yhoo

“Starbucks Kicks off Summer with New Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino® Blended Beverage and Offers More Than 36,000 Different Frappuccino® Combinations.” Starbucks Kicks off Summer with New Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino® Blended Beverage and Offers More Than 36,000 Different Frappuccino® Combinations. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Sept. 2014.