Starbucks Extends Brand

Starbucks just announced a new service where you can burn your own custom music CD while waiting for your latte. "The company will install three to six terminals for choosing music and burning CDs in each of 15 stores in Seattle and 30 in Austin, Texas, said Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks' entertainment division."

To which I say, "Veni, Vedi, Venti!" HP is supporting the new service and the two brands look great together in my opinion.

But for other retailers green with envy over this news (Starbucks green?), there's still hope. This approach totally ignores iPods and other mp3 players. Hook up with Apple and create an iTunes * kiosk that is friendly to any mp3 player for a similar concept taking up less floor space. The customer cannot walk out the door with a store-branded CD, but you could create a frequent buyer program earning free iTunes. You could also prepackage songs to avoid a long line of folks waiting to find and download songs. This is a branding opportunity in itself. Choose a mix of songs aligned with your brand and your target customer.

From coffee to beer, it looks like Cincinnati has been selected as the location for the Beer Hall of Fame. Even better, it looks like my company will be designing it. So drink up.

*Talk about two brands looking great together, check out U2's iTunes commercial. Great way to create buzz around a single and upcoming CD.

Comments

[Kevin Dugan]

No shock, but iTunes already makes it easy to share song lists:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/share.html
So what are they waiting for?!

[Robin M. Williams]

Rather than believing everything this analyst reads, I'd like to hear it from your own company. Did you do this? Urban legend is often considered real. And if so, you'd be smart to do damage control.

BAD MOVE STARBUCKS!!!

Obviously this is a public forum, but this is circulating.

Starbucks Coffee

"Recently Marines in Iraq wrote to Starbucks because they wanted to let them know how much they liked their coffees and to request that they send some of it to the troops there.

Starbucks replied, telling the Marines thank you for their support in their business, but that Starbucks does not support the war, nor anyone in it , and that they would not send the troops their brand of coffee.

So as not to offend Starbucks, we should not support them by buying any of their products. As a war vet writing to fellow patriots, I feel we should get this out in the open. I know this war might not be very popular with some folks, but that doesn't mean we don't support the boys on the ground fighting street-to-street and house-to-house for what they and I believe is right.

If you feel the same as I do then pass this along, or you can discard it and no one will never know. Thanks very much for your support of me, and I know you'll all be there again when I deploy once more.

Semper Fidelis." Sgt Howard C. Wright 1st Force Recon Co 1st Plt PLT RTO

[Kevin Dugan]

This is indeed an urban legend. Swopes, THE premiere urban legend web site, defuses the myth here:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/starbucks.asp

[jack kybird]

Story about Love on the Internet with lady nicknamed cappuccino
Most love stories seem to be written by women for women but I wondered if woman might like to read one from a mans point of view.

I have a very loving and mutually supportive relationship with a lady called
Elena Podkorytova. For seven years we have been talking to each other on a daily basis, telling each other our problems and giving each other advice.

We are not married and we have never physically met but I consider her as my wife. It is a strange Romantic story in many ways because it is a bit of reversal off the way things usually are.
For example she is a professional saleswoman, university graduate and well known artist in Ekaterinburg ( a city in the Ural mountains) divorced with a grown up daughter and son. lives in her own house and is quite a beauty.
If you would like to see a picture of her go to her art website at
http://abursh.sytes.net/rusart/painters/podkorytova/

I am 52 also divorced but with no children .I live in a rented tower block bedsit. Unemployed. Grey haired and hansom is not a characteristic of mine.

Most women I know always seem to mention the sex side of relationships and the importance of physical attraction. Our relationship obviously is not like that but a meeting of souls and minds. That is not to say that we have not had our fair share of arguments.

We have pet names for each other. Her friends call her lena, but I call her cappuccino; it comes from a song about a Italian girl who visits coffee houses in Rome but no matter what you say, cappuccino say chow (bye). She calls me Bonobo (a species of monkey )

Cappuccino would like to see me married but there is no way I could carry on a relationship with her if I did as I do not think it would be fair to my ######### if I could find one that was loving and caring.

Ordinarily if we both lived in England we would never have met each other as our social, economic and physical differences would have kept us apart but the internet circumvents those differences that is why we have a relationship based on what is really important and that is loving each others Personality, talent and intelligence.

I think a lot of relationships may go wrong for men because they go for looks not minds I think that is where I went wrong in my first marriage. Perhaps women go wrong if they went for money and status.

Men find it hard to say those 3 little words of I love you and I find them easier to write then say. My love for cappuccino kind of crept up on me a bit everyday and after 7 years that has amounted to quite a lot. Some women feel a bit insecure as they get older but I will not suddenly stop loving cappuccino if she develops a face like a road map and grows a moustache 

When I first met Cappuccino I had medical problems and started to surf the internet art websites to occupy my time and came across her website and emailed some comments and questions about her artwork and our relationship developed from there.

We both have around 15 years before our retirement and I do have hopes of maybe living physically together then. I was a royal engineer commando during
The cold War seventies so the last thing I ever expected was to find myself in a loving relationship with cappuccino my Russian bell and who knows I may well end my days in the Ural mountain city of Ekaterinburg.
On the other hand Cappuccino visits Italy a lot and can understand why she would prefer living in Italy to the Siberian winters 

You might wonder why I have decided to write to you about my personal love story. Its to help her become a rich and famous artist then she can afford to employ me as her lifetime man servant 