Blog.

We continue our short series highlighting Bryant Simon’s book, EVERYTHING BUT THE COFFEE: Learning about America from Starbucks (University of California Press, 2009).

In the book, Bryant takes a look at Starbucks from all angles including its impact on the environment, cultural society, consumerism, and globalization matters. At one point he writes, “… it became clear that Starbucks fulfilled its many promises only in the thinnest, most transitory of ways and that people’s desires went largely unfulfilled.”

I asked Bryant Simon, in an email exchange, to give specific examples how Starbucks thinly fulfills its promises to customers. Here’s his reply:

BRYANT SIMON: Many branders, following the lead of Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, argue that higher-end consumers are looking for experiences and wiling to pay extra to get them. I think about this idea in a slightly different way. I think we pay a premium to get the things that are missing in our lives – experience being just one of them (and I write about this in the chapter in my book on music and the feeling of discovery, both real and vicarious that Starbucks sells.) Back to my point, so I think that people increasingly buy to fulfill their desires or get a hold of the things that are missing in their lives.

But there is another dynamic at work here.

As other social forces – neighborhoods, community, unions, and politics – seem to recede, brands have stepped into our lives to offer more of the things that matter most to us – everything from authenticity to work spaces to belonging to social justice. Really, then brands sell promises – promises to fulfill our needs and desires. Yet, often they deliver only an illusion of what we need and want, some vapory facsimile that looks like the real thing, but usually isn’t even close.

Few companies, in what we might call the “promise economy,” sell more — e.g. promise more – than Starbucks. But again, the company doesn’t always deliver on its promises.

Take the promise of Third Place. Starbucks has borrowed – expropriated — this phrase from the sociologist Ray Oldenburg. Oldenburg calls these locations real – not virtual — sites between work and home where people can gather. Starbucks serves this role, but back to the question, in only the thinnest, most ephemeral of ways.

To Oldenburg, third places are social setting where strangers meet and forge the bonds of community. Once they trust each other, they go on to discuss matters of crucial import to the community. Talk is essential for these places to genuinely work. But that isn’t really what happens at Starbucks. People come to Starbucks to get a moment of respite or to meet with colleagues, but rarely do they engage in the kinds of community discussions needed to bolster civic life. So what they get at Starbucks, is a busy, chatty looking place that looks like a third place, but isn’t really a third place. Kind of like those cup quotes.

Remember when Starbucks tattooed its cups with quotes? They were there the company said to encourage conversation and community, but they didn’t say much that could get anyone to actually talk or engage with others. Who isn’t in favor of finding love, the rainbow of colors, and the innocence of kids playing baseball? When the cups did incite a little controversy, Starbucks pulled the offending cups. That’s not free speech, and free speech is key to Third Places and to community. Just ask Ray Oldenburg.

Same with the environment. Starbucks knows that a growing core of its customer base cares deeply about green issues, so it promises to do its part (and allow them to think they have done their part). On every Starbucks cup, it reads right under the quotes, “Help us, help the planet.”

Sure, Starbucks has done some great stuff to limit its carbon footprint and utilize solar energy sources, but it doesn’t really help the environment, it actually leaves it in worse shape after each latte purchase. By not pushing in-store ceramic cups or reusable tumblers, Starbucks encourages takeaway, throwaway consumption. Every time we walk out the door with a paper cup, java jacket, and plastic lid (and perhaps a green plastic splash stick), we are – and so is Starbucks – creating trash (and all of the energy and oil needed top produce these additional cups and lids and then cart them off to the landfill where the take up place and slowly rot, but not be they get covered up by another bag of coffee house rubbish.)

These are two examples of promises that Starbucks makes – because the ideas they promise have value to their customers and add value to their products – but doesn’t entirely fulfill. And this is one of the avenues of inquiry I explore in my book. I look hard at what Starbucks sells and what it actually delivers.

More to come on Friday.