yutong, wu's blog

Since2008, Starbucks has set up an on-line community called MY STARBUCKS IDEA which consumers can share their ideas and suggestions about the products of Starbucks. In this way, Starbucks can always understand what their consumers want and keep changing and improving instead of lagging behind the public trend. This is actually a good market strategy. Firstly, consumers spontaneously give responses to products they have tasted and these ideas can become important information for Starbucks to understand what consumers want. Also, compare to the ideas that are generated by doing a traditional market research, the information in this website is more valuable because those information is provided by consumers who usually buy products from Starbucks. Furthermore, getting social advocates is a good marketing strategy that can be used to advertise products. Even though, Starbucks is a well-known brand, the power of social advocates still cannot be ignored. People are more easily influenced by each other’s experiences of a certain product in a certain community, so, this website not only provides Starbucks with ideas about how to improve their performance, but it also helps Starbucks to advertise and promote their products, because of the influence of those social advocates.