gareth kay reopens the subject of the Dunkin' Donuts/Starbucks weird strategy due to a great post from John Moore. The essence of this strategy is described in a short paragraph taken from a Wall Street Journal article :
”Dunkin' Donuts last year paid dozens of faithful customers in Phoenix, Chicago and Charlotte, N.C., $100 a week to buy coffee at Starbucks instead. At the same time, the no-frills coffee chain paid Starbucks customers to make the opposite switch.
When it later debriefed the two groups, Dunkin' says it found them so polarized that company researchers dubbed them "tribes" -- each of whom loathed the very things that made the other tribe loyal to their coffee shop. Dunkin' fans viewed Starbucks as pretentious and trendy, while Starbucks loyalists saw Dunkin' as austere and unoriginal.
‘I don't get it,’ one Dunkin' regular told researchers after visiting Starbucks. ‘If I want to sit on a couch, I stay at home.’”
This gimmick is too well analysed by the two already quoted bloggers, following a common-sense-based, simple approach for me to start the discussion again. i am truly puzzled however by the fact that such strong brands embrace such clumsy, intricate strategies. i mean, if something is simple and successful, why do some have this tendency to think that complicating it neccesarily brings more success? and if you've already accomplished building quite a strong bond, why fight to extrapolate it in this manner?
No comments:
Post a Comment