Marketing Strategy of Starbucks Brand and Its Significance to Chinese Companies

摘要

As the springhead for business long-term survival, brand attracts more and more people's attention and concern. Started in Seattle in 1971, Starbucks expanded rapidly in the following 40 years and now it becomes a large-scale enterprise covering four continents and a famous brand of coffee. Starbucks developed from a small company in Seattle into global business empire. What is the exact secret? Based on the combination of practices and theories, the paper made use of the marketing theories and focused on analysis of the four aspects of Starbucks brand: brand positioning, brand experience, brand communication and brand chain and then summarized that the successful experience of Starbucks' brand strategy is as following: the unique positioning on the third space, experiential consumption, the accumulation of relation assets between customers, employees and suppliers, coffee religion, word of mouth spread, and flexible and strict franchising mode. At the end of the paper, suggestions proposed on how to apply the successful marketing strategy of Starbucks into Chinese companies.