While scanning the restaurant news of the day, I couldn’t help but be struck by the opposite ways that two restaurant giants are marketing their coffee. First, there’s Starbucks with their new and mysterious coffee brewing machine known as the Clover. They’re touting it as a brewing breakthrough–and in buying out the Clover manufacturer, they’re certainly putting their money where their (figurative) mouth is. On top of that, Starbucks will be brewing “small batch” coffees with this miraculous machine.
Contrast that tactic with that employed by McDonalds, recently coming onto the scene with budget gourmet coffee. Behold, unsnobbycoffee.com. That website certainly has a few things going for it–tongue in cheek humor, a bit of fun at the expense of people who might be tempted to try the new Starbucks blends. It also emphasizes price at a time when there are rumors that gourmet coffee is suffering the effects of a tough economy.
So I’m curious what people think about these two disparate marketing techniques…. My thoughts are that the two are actually appealing to different audiences–but for the short term, my bet is on McDonald’s to come out on top. McD’s is targeting a group often ignored by higher end coffee shops–the budget coffee lover. And at times like these, who isn’t on a budget?
