Starbucker

“they don’t seem to have a cafe culture in Italy, do they?”

Starbucks is actually in the business of serving milky confections – decaffienated nonfat lattes topped with whipped cream – so the confusion is understandable.

(I’m annoyed that American cafes don’t serve wine.)

for middle-class consumers in developed countries, exposure to McDonalds and Starbucks leads to the equally misleading inference that American living standards are far below those prevailing in their own countries

I see your point about the rise of American icons being linked to the economics of scale. A Canadian can hardly avoid recognising that there is at least some truth to it. But, I note that some of the commenters from your post last year are already seeing the end approaching for American economies of scale.

Responding to some of Jack Strocchi’s points from that post, if you’re looking for a generic Eurobrand able to compete with McDo on economies of scale, I’d say Quick Burger is the perfect example. It is slightly cheaper than McDo and appears to be do a better job meeting local tastes. And, I’d look for the post-9/11 immigration nightmare to undermine the gains the US gets from international recruiting.

As for English, it is beginning to act as an informal trade barrier, blocking American firms from exporting while foreign firms are able to export to the US easily. Translation and multilingual marketing costs, hiring bilingual staff, difficulties working in a foreign business climate – these all favour firms that can make big gains in the size of their potential market by moving into just one foreign language market – English – while firms from English speaking countries have to do just as much translating and marketing to enter a much smaller non-anglophone market. Add to this how much more likely an overseas firm is to have ample English language abilities in its existing staff, and the greater likelihood that they’ll know Americna business law and business conditions, and it starts to look like the exchange rate on the dollar isn’t the only reason the US has a trade deficit. The gains from exporting to the largest overseas market are always smaller for Americans than for others. An overseas firm that makes a comparable product for a comparable price and sells it locally has a lot more to gain entering the US market than a US firm has in entering their local market.

There is a sort of mini-point buried in that traveller’s comment.

Italian café culture has always struck me as quite distinct from French, German or Austrian café culture.

People tend to knock back their expressos quickly at the bar as opposed to lingering at tables reading and chatting.

Not that they don’t ever linger and chat, just that they seem to do it less than elsewhere on the continent.

Microsoft’s come a bit of a cropper over this kinda thing lately.

Reminds me of Seppos in Morocco marveling over the fact M&Ms were available there. “Hey look, it’s almost like the real thing ‘cept it’s got Arabian writing.”

And also of Aus shock jock, Alan Jones, complaining about Nokia’s sponsorship of some Aus sporting event or team as more pernicious Japanese influence.

And young Guy sure was right about the whole “society of the spectacle” thang too.

David,

a) there’s always been lotsa places in the world where you could get a decent coffee.

b) Buttfucks doesn’t serve a decent cup of coffee.

Eliza, that is actually true, in a way. I guess the lingering and chatting happens more often over drinks, and before dinner, during the ‘aperitivi’.

So well I suppose if one was looking for a “café culture” that’s exactly the same as in other countries then one wouldn’t find it. Of course, who in their right mind would want to go to Italy, or Britain for that matter, and look for the exact same lifestyles and brands and flavours they’re already familiar with? It kind of defeats the purpose of getting a plane ticket in the first place. But hey, wonders never cease.

By the way, there’s been talk of Starbucks opening in Italy for a while now. It’d be fun to see how that goes down.

Des, maar Quick is een Belgische firma. Je weet dat België is geen eentalige land?

The first Quick was opened in suburban Antwerp in ’71. Not francophone country. Personally, I came to love Imbiß stands, sandwich mergez and kebab during my youthful European studies, but my lower intestine begs to differ in my old age.

Er, I mean Imbiss, thanks to the spelling reform.

Scott: Mea culpa. The Interweb misled me by being of the opinion that their extension has been mostly in Francophonia:

“Quick Restaurant is one of Europe’s leading fast food chains with more than 400 locations in France, Belgium, and Luxembourg.”

What’s put them off the doubtless lucrative Dutch market s’ils parlent nativement la langue de – euhh – Cruyff?

David

I agree with you that Starbuck’s has made drinking coffee in the US a much more pleasant experience, but I think that most of the nervousness is about the fact that their economic power may enable them to crush or permanently alter cafe cultures in other countries (where they didn’t create the industry), to the detriment of a great many people in those countries.

(And before the usual suspects start bleating, just because you win doesn’t mean you’re what the people actually want. It may just mean that you have bigger pockets, and thus the ability to drive up rents, control supply, etc. There are plenty of crowded cafes in Europe that could still be run out of business, even while staying crowded.)

Just one problem Reuben, if Starbucks puts so many people out of business, why are there so many more cafés — both chain and independent — than there ever were before?

The pie has gotten way bigger not just Starbucks’ slice.

I swear black blue and blind that there have been coffee shops, milk bars and indeed, cappucino makers the length and breadth of Britain ever since the Italians arrived here. The Morecambe and Wise film “Intelligence Men” has Eric as the proprietor of a “frothy coffee shop” in Blackburn in the 1960s.

Eliza

why are there so many more cafés — both chain and independent — than there ever were before?

Do you have a cite for that? I genuinely don’t know, but when Starbucks moves into a European city, does the number of cafes skyrocket?

Takeout. No one else in Europe does lattes and cappucinos to go.

Then I’ve been getting ripped off, because almost every singe day, I give someone with a European accent money, and he gives me a latte or cappucino. As I’m in Merry Olde England, which is part of Europe and which I now know doesn’t serve these drinks to go, I can only assume that I must have been drinking tea with a bit of yoghurt on top.

Well, let’s see, within five blocks of my home in Canada, I have seven independents and on SBUX. Five years ago it was four independents and no SBUX.

So, let me ask you Reuben, where is it you live that SBUX is wiping out independents and the coffee shop population is dwindling?

As for Europe, where I used to live, there are still too few SBUX there to put anyone out of business. But I just don’t see any reason to believe that SBUX would cause mass coffee shop closures because, despite rumours and myths, it hasn’t caused them anywhere else.

Just what are the “such things” in which Oz is usually a decade ahead of the US and UK?

From my own experience, tenants who mismanage their own business may often use any plausible excuse to explain their failure; and one that sounds good is to blame Starbucks, the landlord etc etc

In any case and more globally, from my own experience, tenants who mismanage their own business may often use any plausible excuse to explain their failure; and one that sounds good is to blame some big entity like Starbucks, the landlord etc etc.

Yes there are instances in which the little enterprise cannot even remotely compete with the big chain. But I do not think that personal and food services are parts of the economy where the large entity has all the cards.

“And best of all, no attitude from some older guy whose surly behavior you’re supposed to find charming….”

Strange. Around here (in Berkeley, CA) it’s the Starbucks employees who have the attitude, not to mention the ridiculously overpriced and overrated coffee. Peet’s is a hundred times better in all respects.

Eliza,

‘My point again would be that Starbucks is not going to replace popular established cafes’

You offer little evidence for this assertion. Starbucks typically push out small cafes by offering larger rents to the landlord. This has happened to four – relatively popular – cafes in my local area. The appearance of these 4 branches, therefore, is determined not simply by local demand but by the economic logic of monopoly. Whereas before, I had a choice of 4 different environments and four different individual coffees, this has been eliminated by a democratically unaccountable corporation. I now have four different instantiations of the same impersonal template. Fantastic.

Reuben,

Fairtrade coffee is indeed more available than ever in NorAm although it seems to me that I recently read an article saying sales were dropping in Europe for some reason. I”ll try to dig it up.

Mark Kaplan,
what can I say other than ask you where you live and what are the cafés that went out of business.

Everywhere I look in every city I visit there are more coffee shops when ever. And when SBUX does do something nasty, it’s a cause celebre and all over the press. Let’s name names please.

Of course, I can’t predict exactly what effect the presence of Starbucks will have in Europe but then neither can you. We’re both making predictions based on what we’ve seen in the locations we know. In five years, we’ll know who was right.

Marek,

Sorry, people buy coffee and go to a particular café for lots of reasons.

That quote is from my blog novel about a Starbucks-like corporation and should be read in its fictional context.

Cheers to you all,

ED

There sems to be an awful lot of anxiety here over the simple cup of coffee.

Personally I drink tea, and I think you should try it. It will calm your nerves.

“Nabakov’s obviously a young un if he thinks it was always easy to get a decent cup of coffee.”

I was talking about the world, not this NorAm place which you appear to think sets the boundaries for discourse on access to decent coffee.

And like dsquared and reuben, I never had any problems laying my lips on or taking away a decent brew in London, or even in Norwich in the 70s(!??!). Guess we just know more cool places than you.

“Just what are the “such things” in which Oz is usually a decade ahead of the US and UK?”

Since the early 80’s, a lifestyle with easy and affordable access to high quality food and drink, available in a wide range of settings.

Also this “great blog novel” you keep touting strikes me at this stage as just another heavy-handed polemic about can-do USA business acumen and common sense vs those decadent Frogs and wiener liberals, complete with Dorothy Dixer comments.

I do hope it will evolve into something more substantial than “Diary of a Parochial Marketing Exec”, for your sakes, if not ours.

Eliza, I know Italy very well, and I’m not sure “SBUX” would do “just fine”, not because of some convenient explanation like “antiamericanism” (… has the definition become so loose it now includes not worshipping at the altar of every single American company, no matter the quality of what they produce? well, if anything, Italians have always been total suckers for American brands – usually, if there is something to them, but not necessarily…). It’s probably be because no one would feel the need to drink diluted coffee that costs ten times as much as what you get in any bar, café, restaurant, latteria and ice cream place at any corner, and does not taste as good. Simple as that. If Starbucks really think it’d be smart for them open in Italy, what’s taking so long? I guess they’d need to push the novelty factor, and the brand, but very few people in Italy actually know what Starbucks is, unless they’ve been to the US. It’s nowhere as known as MacDonalds, which has had a massive brand identity, a novelty appeal, instantly recognisable American products, and a rather smart strategy of meeting local preferences for food and decor (and they actually bought off existing local fast food chains), as well as getting their food from local producers, and even so, it’s still a once-in-a-while experience for most people. If Starbucks were half as smart, they’d have to get their coffee from local well-known suppliers (Lavazza, Illy) instead of their own. They’d have to significantly lower their prices which are insane by Italian standards. They’d have to stick to the more touristy areas. They’d have to take on a very specific target. Also, they would have to face a few hassles with the unions and labour laws and minimum wage standards and all, so I’m not sure it would be convenient for them. Or maybe they’ll surpass all their most amazing expectations and open right in the heart of Naples and be an astounding success and turn all neapolitans into Grande Latte fans! It’d be a lot of fun to see that.

Personally, I don’t care either way, nothing short of nuclear warfare could dismantle the preference for the small local bars and typical way of making and serving coffee & the like, in Italy or elsewhere in Europe where there is a strong local tradition. Starbucks opened in Vienna and Paris, like, big deal. It sure hasn’t changed the presence of cafés offering their own much better coffee, chocolate, cakes, etc. what with many of them being around for one or two centuries and serving specialties that you certainly can’t get in a Starbucks.

Makes me wonder, do people writing on weblogs to advertise for this brand in such enthusiastic ways get paid? Or do they do it out of sheer passion?

Okay. I live in Belfast. It’s Europe but in no ways a very cosmopolitan part of Europe. We got our first Starbuck’s about two months ago. Now, have a second, with a third planned.

I came here in 1992. No, you couldn’t drink the coffee. You couldn’t drink the cofee in the little bakery/cafes. You couldn’t drink the coffee in people’s houses. (I’ve revolutionised my work by refusing to drink instant coffee and bringing in a filter coffee machine).

We didn’t get coffee bars until after the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement. A few popped up, in the city centre, by the university, along trendier streets. Now, you can get a silly designer coffees with whipped cream and chocolate at the grocery stores, at various branches of the local chains and even from little carts. It wasn’t always like this.

Of course it didn’t take Starbucks opening to create the market. But I think the fact that Starbucks existed and showed a way of doing business, influenced what happened here. People were exposed to the Starbucks idea in London, in New York, in Noram. Coffee is better. I’d still go out of my way for a Peet’s though.

ED,

“As they say in France when SBUX arrives ‘Vive la Difference!’”

Actually they said “So fcukin’ what”.

And never feedback, you need talent. And a decent cup of coffee.

Oh, don’t worry about it Reuben. I’m sooo at polar odds with Nabakov on everything, that I consider his personal attacks kind of a badge of honour.

OK, it’s clear black-humoured Aus/Brit chaffing doesn’t translate well online to the lower 48.

But beyond that, I can handle perky or pompous, but not both together.

Kinda like having a double decaf orange, overfoamed friggalatto pushed at yer when all you wanted was a short black.

But hey, if yer wheel yer barrow out and start touting, then be prepared to accept some backchat from the punters.

Besides I like a good barney.

Hey Nabakov, you’re now officially part of the blog novel with your own place in my comments section

Given as yer wheeled yer barrow out, I don’t expect any objections.

also kind of like the allitration of perky, pompous and parochial!

And it’s not just the excess of perkiness and pomposity that shows you up as parochial, it’s also the lack of blog politesse.

By all means lift my remarks for your blog (that’s why I shoot my mouth off online), but placing them as comments in a thread when they weren’t posted there to begin with smells of branchstacking for starters (Me Mum didn’t raise me to be no Dorothy Dixer), not mention the whole out of context thing.

And what makes you think it’s “Mr” Nabakov?

Also the correct spelling is “alliteration”.

Keep this up and I won’t be the only person here reminded of Tracy Flick in “Election”.

“It’s interesting too that while you’re maintaing that Starbucks coffee is so bad it will never shut down european cafes others on this thread are ringing their hands in anguish about how Starbucks might destroy the locals.”

Its possible for Starbucks to be worse than the alternatives and still drive competitors out of business, you know. Big companies have deep pockets and can engage in predatory behaviour.

But I’m amazed that anyone see’s the original post as an attack on Starbucks. Its an attack on ignorance and parochialism, if anything.

I lied/misspoke/promised more than I could deliver. I couldn’t resist coming back.

Nabakov — I’ve updated the comments section at my blog novel to take your concerns into account.

I’m a big Rese (whoops–typo, dyslexia or spelling parochialism??) fan myself.

Oh yeah, and isn’t just more than a little parocial to claim the Ozzies invented the new foodieism just because you happened to have your first Californian curry on Bondi Beach? In any case I must have selpt through the day everyone agreed food trends begin in Oz and then move to the UK and US 10 years later.

Momo, Mcdonald’s can’t buy and sell much right now. The company’s in big trouble except in France, where in a case of what the Economist magazine calls
delicious irony, it’s going gangbusters.

Mark K., I’m not accusing you of lying just being subject to preconceived notions.

And I didn’t think I was advertising, just harnessing the power of a giant blog like CT to promote my little Indie.

Nab, you brute,

Of course, I’ll make a royalties deal with you, but you’ll have to pay me some cash up front.

And enter us in the contest by all means. U know what they say — any publicity is good publicity.

Yours,

Eliza

ps my daughter thinks your posts are really mean. she must have inherited my appreciation for the mot juste.

Eliza, you’re so funny, really.

Let’s see. McDonalds has thousands of outlets worldwide and is sponsoring the Olympics.

The local bar that makes really nice sandwiches and salads as well as drinks, isn’t. Not even sponsoring the local school dads football team.

I don’t know how exactly McDonalds is supposed to be “in big trouble” seen as it’s buying more and more outlets around the world. Would that be similar to Microsoft being “in big trouble”? I want me some of that big trouble too, thanks. With latte.

The point was the same that Mark put like this: “Its possible for Starbucks to be worse than the alternatives and still drive competitors out of business, you know. Big companies have deep pockets and can engage in predatory behaviour.”

I wish I was a Starbucks executive, Eliza, not for the money, but just to reward your amazing efforts. One mention of Starbucks and you were here before you could even understand what the point of the discussion actually was! Such skills deserve some more recognition than a place on blogspot.

‘Mark K., I’m not accusing you of lying just being subject to preconceived notions’

‘I operate by clear light of reason, you according to preconceived notions’: few rhetorical gestures are quite as stale – or preconceived – as this one Eliza.

Cafe Latte, contrary to its name, isn’t coffee at all – it’s a poor excuse like Prosecco. A good coffee means a double espresso or a non-diluted cappucino accompanied by a cigarette and a little biscuit. And I don’t know what they serve at SBUX – but it sure doesn’t qualify as coffee, I suggest sticking to Cafe Nero while in the UK.

Eliza

Sorry, people buy coffee and go to a particular café for lots of reasons.

Of course they do. But it was you, not I (or anyone else) who advanced a closed set of three reasons, the first of which was to do with love or hatred (are you clear which?) for things American. I live in a big European city where lots of people buy coffee from Starbucks, lots of people buy it from other places and many do both. I have been in many conversations about where to go for coffee; never once has anybody suggested that the nationality of final ownership of the establishment concerned had the slightest weight on the decision.
You, on the other hand, put it as the first of your three reasons. If you wish to retreat behind the shroud of your fiction, so be it, the truth in your fiction can be anything you want it to be. But since you have chosen to comment in a thread about Starbucks, it would be interesting to know if you have a glimmer of evidence behind you very forceful assertion.

John,

Even without consulting the data, I can assure you that the figures for distribution, marketing and exhibition of films outside the U.S. (I am actually in Canada; the Canadian market is often considered part of the “domestic” market) are similar (relatively speaking) in most developed countries, though they may vary somewhat from one “territory” to another. The tendency is for studio films to open simultaneously in as many (North American) cities as possible (“day and date”) so as to maximize the bang for the advertising buck. But, for popular films, it also means making several thousand prints at $2000-$3000 each since the opening weekend is crucial. This process is then repeated in Europe and other “territories”. Take Europe. The prints are ready to be shipped, but (outside the U.K.) the films must be dubbed into each local language. And local advertising campaigns must be prepared. These expenses are anything but “trivial”.

“I mean are you implying that Starbucks has nukes?”

That might explain the taste. And the prices.

Eliza, the part about you not “understanding” is not a cheap shot, it’s that you’re really not grasping the nature of the criticism about the impact of big multinational brands on typical local lifestyles and habits esp. in food and drink.

John Quiggin’s post was about a lot more than Starbucks, clearly if that’s all you latched on to, you’re not getting the picture!

And when talking of Italy, I happen to be half-Italian and be living in Italy. It is not a contradiction to simply observe that there are local specialties and associated ways of serving and consuming things like coffee that will certainly not be eradicated, and at the same time, not consider it a good thing that some mega corporation is able to buy their way into a market that they can create in an entirely artificial way, just because they have the resources to. I don’t have a Darwinist vision of business, or life, so to me bigger is not automaticallly better – nor is small automatically better, I’m not a fanatical anti-globalist. It’s not even a matter of local vs. global to me, I don’t care where a company is from as long as there is quality and a _real_ market and good business practices – something like IKEA is great because it can offer good and relatively cheap products that can integrate perfectly in any market, and it does satisfy a demand; American TV series can be far better than locally produced ones; ditto for computers and software, there can be a million examples. But if we’re talking selling Starbucks coffee in Italy, as the Italians would say, it’d be like selling icicles in the North Pole (it doesn’t translate well…) – SURELY a big enough corporation would be able to do just that, too, but it’d be _just because they can_, not because there is a real demand. I’m not too worried about that style of business but I’m not particularly fond of it either. I guess other people who commented are more concerned about the effect of SBUX within the US – I don’t have the same concern about Italy or Europe at large, in this specific regard to coffee and food, but there’s more ways in which a company can affect a market than “driving the locals out of business”. I don’t have to _like_ McDonalds or Starbucks OR ELSE be terrified they might close down every other business in their range, you know? The issues about “globalization and soft power” as it was put above and in the linked posts are not reduced to such ridiculous extremes. That is what you’re not understanding, amongst other things.

“And if you don’t mind I’ll cull your quote too.”

Actually, I do mind, so, please don’t, ok? Thanks. I’m sure you have lots of great ideas of your own creation without having to resort to lifting comments from other blogs to fill your own. Again, congratulations for the creative spamming!

Whatever suits you, Eliza, but regardless of your business interests, if you don’t mind more “patronising”, a.k.a. discussion, the whole point of quoting this anecdote…

Speaking of a unified world, one of my American students confided in me after a trip abroad “they don’t seem to have a cafe culture in Italy, do they?” ‘What?,” I stammered. ‘Well, I didn’t see a single Starbucks all the time I was there.”

… is not that it has to do with Starbucks, or coffee, could have been any other brand or market.

As Jim Morrison might have said, ‘I’ve been steeped in simulacra so damn long, it sure looks like the real to me.”

I’m sure you grasped all that already, it just didn’t come across amidst all the brand praise and blog plugging, that’s all. That’s the perils of marketing to the wrong target, I guess.

Eliza

I also happen to think that Starbucks’ fame is inseperably intertwined with its Americanness and people’s impression of what an American brand will offer them

Thanks for the clarification – I think I understand your position (and that of your fictional alter ego) more clearly. But I still think the line I have quoted from your comment is simply wrong. Americanness is not part of Starbuck’s brand positioning in Europe and, empirically, as I said in my earlier comment, I have never come across anybody whose view about them – for or against – had anything to do with that.

Moreover, that’s not surprising: there is plenty of evidence that, to the extent this is a factor in decision making at all, general levels of knowledge about the ownership of companies is extremly limited. In the UK, for example, companies such as Hoover and Phillips are widely perceived to be British.

But my basic point is not that Starbuck’s UK customers mistakenly think of it as a British company; it is that its nationality simply doesn’t come into their judgement about whether they like the coffee or the ambiance.

Sorry, that link was

http://allisonkaplansommer.blogmosis.com/history/011487.html

One final point, John, re distribution, marketing and exhibition of films… Everything I said above stands to change drastically when the digital revolution is complete. With the advent of digital technology, “films” will (eventually) be made and shown entirely without recourse to celluloid film stock. They will be shot on lightweight digital video cameras (as many documentaries are done already), transferred for editing to computers, and then reproduced entirely in digital format. Fifty “prints” needed in Kansas City or Zurich or Buenos Aires? That will be as easy as pressing a few keys on a keyboard. No print costs, hardly any shipping costs. Dubbing and subtitling will be vastly simplified. On the other hand, the problem of piracy, already large, will grow to enormous, perhaps overwhelming, size. And exhibition will remain something of a problem for a while to come, since the technology of showing digital films is far from perfected, not to mention the disagreement over standards. And who will absorb the huge costs of transforming current projection and exhibition equipment to accomodate digital movies? Celluloid film will be around for some time (its visual quality is still superior), as it is in still photography, but the trend is distinctly in the digital direction. So if you are going to re-examine the movie business in the near future, John, you will be examining an industry in flux.