20011 has been good for Starbucks. It’s stock-price has been rising. Last month it reported that its growing customer base has driven Q2 profits up 20%. And Advertising Age now reports that “Last week Starbucks blasted past Wendy’s and Burger King to become the No. 3 restaurant chain, posting $9.07 billion in domestic restaurant sales last year, up 8.7% from 2009.”
I find this interesting because consultancy Brand Keys offer a Starbucks case study as the main evidence of the predictive power of their ‘Customer Loyalty Engagement’ metric, a survey that you can (only) buy from them. I previously examined all the predictive claims within their Starbucks case study and found nowhere did they ever manage to predict a change in the firm’s fortunes (either sales or profits) before it happened, only afterwards.
So Starbucks has had almost two years of rebound now but I haven’t heard lots of positive news from Brand Keys (or anyone else for that matter). In fact in February 2011 they once again listed Dunkin Donuts as the coffee shop with highest ‘loyalty’. See here for Dunkin Donuts’ proud announcement. I’m guessing that they are a client of Brand Keys, and that Star Bucks is probably not.
Where were the gurus in 2010, or better yet 2009, predicting the resurgence of StarBucks ? Does anyone know of any prescient predictions ?
Marketing Science 
Hey Byron,
Only just came across your blog – a gold-mine of insight 🙂
Here is my post from Jan 2008 where I said: “My bet is that one year from now Starbuck’s will be in much better health. In fact, I think its time to buy some stock.” My rationale was the return of CEO Howard Shultz, and a re-focus on the core.
http://wheresthesausage.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/01/shultz-re-takes.html
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