meagan wells - wordpress.com · target, and by advertising on social media where...
TRANSCRIPT
Reaching a specific audience is hard, especially when things like budgeting
are involved. In the last year, Starbucks spent a little less than $78 million on
advertising to major media outlets, 47% of which was spent on magazine
ads.4 This may do well to reach their standard consumer, but will it reach
families with young children?
Perhaps they could increase their cable TV advertising on family-friendly
channels and pump up their internet presence on parent-oriented websites,
since they spent only about $20 million on the two of these combined in the
last 12 months.4
Once again, there is no correct answer. But the channel of
communication is one of the most vital parts of the
advertising process, as it is the only way consumers receive
and decode communications from companies.
Continuing with our idea for an emotional ad campaign, it
would be best to broadcast something like this on
television, or in short video clips online, both of which are
great places for Starbucks to expand their advertising
presence.
The actual decoding of your advertising message is up to
the consumer, based on their fields of experience, channels
of communication, and the content of the message itself.
Your job is to make sure that they decode your message in
the way that you want them to.
To properly reach prospective Starbucks customers with young children,
the most important part is informing this group that Starbucks is a wel-
coming, healthy environment for their little ones. Once you can convince
them of this and make sure it really resonates with them, you can change
the group’s whole mindset about the Starbucks company as a whole and
what its products have to offer. This can pos-
itively impact sales in the long-term while
building a whole new segment of loyal cus-
tomers and a whole new generation of cus-
tomers who will hold Starbucks near and
dear to their hearts as their favorite place to
spend time in their childhood.5
If you’re going to sell anything,
you must first have a product.
Since this is a guide for
marketing to diverse groups,
let’s go with a coffee drink
from Starbucks.
Once again, our goal is to sell
something. Now you just need someone to sell it to.
This is where market segmentation comes into play.
So far, Starbucks seems to target middle to upper-
middle class consumers, who are typically between
the ages of 18 and 50.1 They do this by maintaining
a hip, contemporary brand image and by making
Starbucks stores a place to hang out, get work done,
and meet people.
Starbucks is already doing a great job of targeting
this audience, so let’s compare this market to one
that Starbucks could expand their reach to—
families with young children.
You can use demographic indicators to help you to
decide who fits into your market. For example, families
with young children would typically be indicated by
parents aged 25-35, both male and female, and would
fit into varieties of occupation, race, and income
indicators.4
The fields of user experience method is one
of many options when it comes to
frameworks for crafting an advertising
method. It is popularly used for marketing
products that appeal to specific market
segments, or can appeal to numerous
different types of markets.
For our specific group, Starbucks has
already done a great job of reaching their
fields of experience by setting up stores in
urban and suburban areas, inside stores like
Target, and by advertising on social media
where twenty-to-thirty-somethings will find
their messages and advertisements easily.
Luckily, Starbucks likely already reaches
most of our new target audience with these
methods, since young families spend their
time in many of these same places.
Most of us already know the message that Starbucks sends to its current target
audience. The name and the logo are synonymous with good coffee and a
trendy brand image for consumers today.3
But what about those young families? How can Starbucks send the message
that they belong in Starbucks stores? Should they include more children in
their advertising? Should they set up stores closer to elementary schools and
daycares? Should they make a kids menu? Should they pay for product
placement in family-friendly movies?
There is no right answer. Any one or combination of these could do the trick.
One proven way to send a strong message to families, would be to connect
their message to emotion. A great new ad campaign could feature happy, loving
children and families enjoying time together in their local Starbucks store.
Created by
Meagan Wells
This part is important, because no matter how important or awesome your message is, it will never
reach your audience if it’s not within their field of experience, or the area of content that they relate
to and understand.2