Does Starbucks have "medium cup discrimination"? No, this is their marketing!

A while ago, it was the Christmas green cup that angered foreign netizens. This time, it was the cup shape that drove loyal domestic customers crazy. The paper cup issue has once again put Starbucks at the center of controversy.

This matter is simple. It is the "medium cup discrimination theory" triggered by a tweet from a public account.

On November 13, a public tweet addressed to the CEO of Starbucks China went viral on WeChat Moments. In the tweet, Starbucks Gold Card member Lin Guotong complained that the waiter constantly doubted his choice of cup size. "Are you sure it's a medium cup?" "Medium cup is our smallest cup size!" The Starbucks waiter kept emphasizing the medium cup issue to Lin Guotong, which made him very uncomfortable: "I already have a mild psychological disorder. I'm afraid your staff will doubt my choice of cup size again."

As of the evening of the 14th, this public account tweet has been read more than 500,000 times and has attracted strong attention from a series of media and self-media . Discussions related to Starbucks' "medium cup discrimination" have been heated in the past two days. Some witty netizens even made up a related Onion News article, which said, "According to the Seattle Metro News, on the morning of the 16th, the Starbucks Cup Design Center officially announced that it would cancel the global Starbucks medium, large, and extra-large cup types and change them to A cup, B cup, and C cup." (No one would really believe this!)

Does Starbucks really have "medium cup discrimination"? Listen to Bangmei and the writer’s detailed explanation.

Does Starbucks have "medium cup discrimination"? Of course not!

Starbucks has three main cup types: Tall, Grande and Venti, which are translated into medium, large and extra large in China.

Starbucks has always been flexible. Since it has opened stores in China and its consumers are Chinese, it needs to conform to the Chinese people's understanding habits. Is it difficult to directly translate into small, medium, and large? It’s not difficult, but they force you to learn three words: Tall, Grande, Venti. Because the ordering process at Starbucks is a game , a social act and a performance.

Don’t believe it? Look at this:

Except for "super large cup", the other two situations will cause ambiguity. This kind of ambiguity wastes dozens of seconds on each customer. Multiplied by hundreds of customers a day, 365 days a year, and 1,700 stores, the wasted time can be infinitely magnified. It is unbelievable that such an obvious loophole would appear in a company as big as Starbucks.

Starbucks itself is of course aware of this, but how did they "solve" it?

Starbucks placed three cups in front of the cash register to display the cup shapes, but the ambiguity in spoken language was not eliminated. If you point to the cup in the middle and say: I want a medium cup, the bartender will tell you tirelessly: Sir, this is a large cup (please imagine Luo Yonghao's emoticons here). The cup shape display is of little use, isn't this just making things difficult for myself?

What happened to Starbucks? Some people say that old customers are used to calling it this way. Don’t forget, Starbucks was able to modify its logo after using it for 19 years.

So, Starbucks has no intention of solving this problem at all.

You will soon discover that the only and easiest way to avoid ambiguity and embarrassment is to learn to use these three words: Tall, Grande, Venti . Is it difficult to learn the pronunciation of three words? It’s not difficult, the threshold is very low. The first letters of these three words are T, G, and V, which are very distinctive. No matter whether the pronunciation is standard or not, as long as you read it out loud, the bartender will understand.

Game 1: Teach you how to say Tall, Grande, Venti

So why does Starbucks force its customers to learn three strange words? Are they popularizing Italian? Naive!

They want to get you into the game and make you feel good: going to Starbucks to drink coffee is not just about drinking coffee, it also has the social function of enhancing your identity.

The bar is Starbucks’ stage: through design and placement of items, the bar is the focus of the store; only one cash register is open at a time; and customers are not allowed to leave the bar (of course, these settings have other factors involved, and I won’t go into detail about the minor ones).

People often say that going to Starbucks is just pretending. Assuming this is the case, have you ever thought about who you are pretending to be for? Besides taking photos and posting them on social media, ordering is the best time.

Before ordering at Starbucks, do you try to recite the order lines several times in your mind to make yourself look like a veteran before going up to the bar? Because you at the bar are the center of the store at this moment, and other customers and friends are your audience.

Many people know that Starbucks has three cup sizes: medium, large and extra large. If you say: I want a large cup, as expected, the bar staff will tell you in front of everyone: Sir, the large cup is the middle cup size, do you want this one or the largest one? They don't care if you have a gold card or visit twice a week. But if you choose to speak fluently, Venti latte mug, it will be convenient for both you and others. So you have no choice but to learn to say these three words in Starbucks.

Once you learn these three words, you enter the first stage of the game system that Starbucks sets up for you. The positive reinforcement brought by the feeling of attention will guide you to go further and further on this path.

Game 2: Customization of milk and syrup

Starbucks will try to keep you at the bar while you wait for your drink to be made. The open bar allows you to see the entire process of making drinks (those who are interested can also compare it with Costa and Pacific). In addition to chatting with the barista, over time you will definitely know how your favorite drinks are made, and personalized customization will begin.

Therefore, the second part of the game is the customization of different milks and syrups. Such changes can further demonstrate your status as a regular customer.

Game 3: Special Drinks

The third ring is special mixes, where you can order some of your own combinations, and in this way, you will be very impressive in the eyes of the “audience”. Order a specially made drink, and no matter whether it tastes good or not, you will feel refreshed.

Some people say that the store staff do not welcome customers to order strange special drinks, but have you noticed that Starbucks deliberately hides some common syrups and combinations in its drink menu? For example:

1) There is no drink on Starbucks’ menu that uses raspberry syrup, but raspberry syrup is actually a must-have regular ingredient;

2) Except for the limited-time strawberry-flavored drinks every summer, Starbucks does not offer conspicuous red drinks for most of the year. But there are drinks in other colors, such as yellow mango passion fruit tea frappuccino, green matcha frappuccino, blue-purple ice shake cranberry blackcurrant;

3) And raspberry syrup happens to be bright red.

Don’t you understand Starbucks’ good intentions? This is to do everything possible to bring you zhuangbility and take you flying. As long as you add raspberry syrup when ordering, the drink will turn into the most eye-catching red color, and other customers will look at you with envy and confusion: you are a regular customer and seem to know a lot about special drinks. To this end, Starbucks even sacrificed its extremely popular strawberry-flavored Frappuccino, and sales profits had to be compromised in order to set up a gamification system for them.

Game fourth ring: hidden menu

The fourth ring is the hidden menu. Every restaurant or drink shop has some food and drinks that are not written on the menu, and Starbucks is no exception. Previously, Starbucks’ hidden menu was espresso, and now it’s iced mango hibiscus.

The most voted Starbucks drink on Zhihu is Ristretto Iceberg Americano. Actually, most people are not used to drinking Iceberg Americano, but why did it get more than 5,000 likes? Because it is very classy.

Game fifth ring: this week's coffee, hand-brewed coffee, selected coffee

You think Starbucks coffee is just pot water and you look down on it? There are so many high-end coffee brands now, who still relies on Starbucks to show off?

It's you who didn't continue playing, but can you afford to play?

If you are strong enough, you can follow Starbucks' game: you can talk to professional partners about origin, blending, roasting and production methods; you can play the Coffee Passport and drink all of Starbucks' basic coffees; you can also do a blind coffee test; you can even visit the Seattle roasting factory, cupping center, and coffee origins (Guatemala, Sumatra, Peru); if you have the financial strength, you can even buy a Starbucks coffee estate.

In fact, Starbucks has always been lowering its profile to play with the most ordinary consumers who don’t drink coffee. These gamified things cover people of all income and status, satisfying people's standardized vanity and sense of accomplishment, and are closely linked to each other. Are there times when you clearly don’t want to drink coffee, but you still have to go to Starbucks even if it means taking a detour? Therefore, failed coffee shops pretend to be biger themselves, while successful ones try every means to get their customers to pretend to be biger .

Starbucks satisfies not only physiological needs, but also social needs - social identity.

Relevant tests have shown that when consuming at Starbucks, the moment of placing an order is the peak of the heartbeat curve. Next, you feel that it is boring, so you take a photo, post it on your Moments, and leave. This is experiential marketing : carefully designing all aspects of consumption based on the consumer’s subjective feelings.

The same thing happened with Apple in the past. Even the unpacking and unpacking were filmed and circulated online. Now when you order a drink at Starbucks, someone has made a guide and thousands of people have liked it. It's this kind of company that can make a lot of money. Companies that only know how to make products, such as Sony and Nokia, and Costa and Pacific Coffee that compete with Starbucks, all have good products, but their revenues are far behind.

Consumers are human beings, and human beings are irrational. It is far more important to please them than to give them what you think is a good product. Some people also said, I go to Starbucks just to drink coffee, I don’t feel anything after you talk so much about it. But Starbucks has also done a great job of satisfying differentiated needs. Just like some people only need to make calls and send text messages, but they still choose to buy an iPhone.

I'd better add the fact that Starbucks has small cups. Many people say that Starbucks has small cups, so they are called medium, large and extra large cups. Is that true? Upload a picture of the small cup and the smallest cup.

The left is the Solo cup, the right is the Short cup

That’s right, strictly speaking, Starbucks has 6 cup types, namely Solo, Short, Tall, Grande, Venti, and Trenta. But if you go to Starbucks and ask for a small cup, they'll say they don't have any, and they probably mean it. Because for each store, what goods to purchase and what not to purchase is entirely decided by the store's purchasing supervisor.

What kind of store would stock small cups? There are hand-brew stores and core stores in some business districts. The former is because some people are not used to drinking black coffee, so they can make less for them; the latter is that there are always people in the business district asking for water, and small cups save costs. It can be seen that this cup type is not the mainstream cup type for "sale".

If you were a decision maker, would you keep the name "small cup" for the sake of system integrity and allow the ambiguity it creates to reduce the efficiency of staff? Starbucks is a business and a company, and it won't compete with itself on this. It is not a company with sentiments. The first Starbucks store in China, the Beijing World Trade Center store, was closed by the headquarters because the rent was too high (it was not that it did not make money, but the profit was low).

Finally, let me ask you: Do you know the first trick to pretend to be a regular customer at Starbucks? Please follow Bangmei to read:

Medium cup——Tall—— [tɔ:l]

Grande——[grɑ:ndi]

Extra large cup——Venti——['ventɪ]

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This article was compiled and published by @胡博超 (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!