Nottingham University Business School

Undergraduate Programme

[Consumer behavior (N13701)]

Explanation of howStarbucks achieve brandsuccess base on attitude

and learning

[Nguyen Tam Thuc]; Student ID: [015000]Words count: 1,424 (Excluding Abstract, Table of Content, Appendix and

Reference)

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Abstract

Starbucks, nowadays, is know as one of the most successful brand in NorthAmerica. This paper will firstly examine how successful it is by statisticnumber, then explain this success by two consumer behavior theory. One isattitude, the other is learning. At the end of this paper, suggestion forStarbucks to improve is provided. Moreover, how the author of this paperhas learned after conducting this research also be provided.

Table of content

1. Introduction

2. Discussion

2.1 Explanation of how Starbucks brand success base on attitude - the

theory of planned behavior

2.2 Explanation of how Starbucks gets their consumer learn about its

brand - the behavioral learning theories

3. Conclusion, learning and recommendation

4. Appendix

5. Reference

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1. Introduction

Nowadays, when mention about coffee house, many people will firstly think

about Starbucks. Starbucks has become one of the most successful brand,

especially in North America. Base on some criteria for assessing a brand

success by Chernatony, Dall’Olmo Riley and Harris (1998), Starbucks is very

successful both business and brand-based criteria. In terms of

business-based criteria, the cross profit margin of company grew from

56.46% in 2011 to 59.32% in 2015 (Figure 1) while market share of

Starbucks also very high in the US in 2011 which achieved up to 32.6%

(Statista, 2011). In terms of brand-based criteria for assessing, the statistic

also shows a good numbers. The brand awareness of Starbucks achieved

80% in North America (Rizwan and Xian, 2008). It raise the question how

could Starbucks reached that far. This paper will attempt to examine the

success of Starbucks from the perspective of attitude and learning in

consumer behavior.

2. Discussion

2.1 Explanation of how Starbucks brand success base

on attitude - the theory of planned behavior

In this part, this paper will allocate how Starbucks has become successful

brand thanks to ability to influence consumer attitude base on the theory of

planned behavior. In this theory, Ajzen (1991) allocates that there are three

factors which lead to the decision for acting including attitude to behavior,

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subjective norm and perceived control. These factors will create behavioral

intention. This intention together with perceived control will lead to behavior

(figure 2).

In terms of attitude to behavior, it is described to present the person

evaluation of the entity (Ajzen, and Fishbein, 1977). According to the

functional theory of attitude by Katz (1960), there is one function called

utilitarian function which address that people will develop attitude toward

the brand if they feel pleasure or pain. In case of Starbucks, the brand has

successfully develop that attitude through pleasure by delivering good

experience (Verhoef, Lemon, Parasuaman, Roggeveen, Tsiros and

Schlesinger, 2009). That experience, or called Starbucks experience, is

maintained by baristas, who are well-trained to create comfortable, stable

and entertaining environment for customers (Gulati, Huffman, and Neilson,

2008). The Starbucks experience plays an important role in forming the

positive attitude because, according to experiential hierarchy in the ABC

model of attitude, the act of adopting the intangible attributes to create

excitement when using brand’s products will lead to positive attitude toward

the brand (Solomon, 2014).

Moreover, Starbucks marketers also use this positive attitude to engaging

customers. According to Liu and Zhao (2015), there is a positive relationship

between the attitude and customer engagement. This mean that the more

positive of customer attitude, the more likely customer engage with the

brand. For the art of engagement, Starbucks develop My Starbucks Idea site

which allow customer to co-create the brand by sharing their ideas for

improve Starbucks experience.

However, having positive attitude does not mean that customer will choose

a product because of subjective norm, which defined to be the social

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pressure to form or not to form a behavior (Ajzen, 1991). In case of

Starbucks, this paper could not find any record about social pressure toward

using or not using Starbucks. Instead, this paper found out that million of

parents would not feed guilty/embarrassed to feeding their children in

Starbucks (Wong, 2015). Therefore, the social pressure toward Starbucks

should be none.

In terms of perceive control, Ajzen (1991) defines it to be the ease or

difficulty of performing the behavior of interest. Nowadays, Starbucks has

successfully made this desire to act become much more easier by having the

“Place” become the most suitable for customer. According to Greenspan

(2015), these places, or distribution channels, including cafés, online stores,

Starbucks App and retailers. Since customers could buy Starbucks almost

everywhere, every time thanks to good distribution, Starbucks marketers

have done well to make customer perceive control became its advantage.

Finally, because Starbucks can create positive attitude to behavior, favorable

subjective norm and make buying process (perceive control) becomes easier,

it can explain how people have favorable behavior intention to buy

Starbucks, which join hand for create brand success of this company.

2.2 Explanation of how Starbucks gets their

consumers learn about its brand - the behavioral

learning theories.

In this part, this paper will examine how Starbucks brand is success base on

learning and memory. This paper will focus on learning base on behavioral

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learning theories in order to address the topic. According to Rothschild and

Gaidis (1981), behavioral learning occur when there is response to the

stimulus. There are two approaches to behavioral learning which are

classical conditioning and instrumental conditioning.

In terms of classical conditioning, it is about pair a stimulus which generate

a response with another stimulus but initially do not generate response

(Solomon, 2014). The classical conditioning require repetition in order to

have the link between this pair created. In the context of Starbucks, the

brand just have only done the repetition when it has made the Starbucks

cups become easier to recognize in public which result in the brand image

can keep repeating in customer mind (Ahearn, 2013). However, Rizwan et.al.

(2008) allocate that the Starbucks has not done well in create the link

between the brand with coffee because 50% of people linked Starbucks with

American style rather than coffee while Starbucks logo with a siren, on the

other hand, actually represents the seductive of good hot coffee just like

how seductive the mermaid is, not the America style (Ruiz, 2012).

Unlike the classical conditioning, Starbucks’ instrumental conditioning was a

big success in terms of reinforcing buying behavior of customers. Solomon

(2014) allocates that instrumental conditioning is when people learn to

perform behaviors when they receive positive outcomes while avoid the

negative ones. Starbucks has applied this theory by rewarding customer in

order to positive reinforce the buying behavior. According to McEachern

(2014), My Starbucks Rewards is considered to be one of the best retail

loyalty programmes have been existed. According to Starbucks (2016)

customer will be rewarded base on the number of stars they earn when

purchasing by Starbucks card. This fixed-ratio reinforcement will motivate

customer performing their positive behavior consistently. The differentiation

of this programme is that Starbucks even assist this performance by easing

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the process. customers can use the Starbucks’ app to make the purchase

and tracking number of stars they have earned. Especially, customers can

earn stars by purchasing Starbucks products that outside their retail

locations. This point of programme has get customer learn that they can

earn rewards even not going to any Starbucks retail stores, therefore, make

even more purchases of Starbucks products. Consequently, generated 6

million transactions per week and accounted for 15% of US sale for the

franchise (Mc Eachern, 2014).

In brief, customer willing to learn Starbucks brand partly because of classical

conditioning since Starbucks successfully repeat their image in customer

mind. Moreover, the instrumental conditioning is the major player which

contribute to the success of getting customer learn about the brand by

distinctive reward system.

3. Conclusion, learning and recommendation

This paper has explained how Starbucks becomes success by addressing

how Starbucks influence customers attitude base on theory of planned

behavior and how the brand get its customers learn about itself base on

behavioral learning theory. In terms of attitude, this paper conclude that

Starbucks can influence its customers because it can create positive attitude

to behavior, favorable subjective norm and ease the perceive control,

therefore, rise behavioral intention lead to behavior.

With regard to how Starbucks get their customers learn about their brand.

This paper conclude that classical condition for Starbucks did not successful.

On the other hand, instrumental condition was the big achievement of

Starbucks with one of the best reward system.

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Base on the previous analysis, I have learned that attitude and learning are

very important to a brand successful. Moreover, I also learn not to just focus

on creating positive attitude but also should pay attention to subjective

norm and perceive control. For the learning, I recognize that only

instrumental condition may bring success to company.

In terms of suggestion, this paper advice Starbucks should work more on

classical condition in order to get their customer learn better. Since almost

50% of customers have linked Starbucks logo with American Style,

Starbucks can switch to “American Style” position instead of “seductive

coffee” in order to gain differentiation. However, Starbucks should concern

that customer may confusion because of position switching. Therefore, once

Starbucks has change to this position, it should focus on strengthen it

consistently.

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Appendix

55.00%

55.50%

56.00%

56.50%

57.00%

57.50%

58.00%

58.50%

59.00%

59.50%

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

56.46%

57.27%57.66%

58.78%

59.32%

Starubucks

Figure 1: Starbucks cross profit margin (Ycharts, 2016)

Figure 2: Theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991)

Attitudeto

behavior

Perceived control

Subjective norm

Behavioral intention

Behavior

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References

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Chematony, L., Dall'Olmo Riley, F. and Harris, F. (1998). Criteria to

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