Starbucks’ VIA instant-coffee bet
Can Starbucks persuade Americans to embrace instant coffee?
Starbucks is introducing a line of instant coffee named "VIA".
(Corbis/James Leynse)
Starbucks “helped produce a nation of coffee snobs willing to pay $4 a cup,” said Lance Benzel in The Colorado Springs Gazette. Now it's trying to get “the very coffee aficionados who honed their tastes—and raised their standards—with Starbucks” to embrace its new instant coffee, VIA Ready Brew. VIA hits stores nationwide Tuesday, and Starbucks has “high hopes” it can get coffee fans to rethink how they drink coffee—again.
It’s doing more than hoping, said Emily Bryson York in Advertising Age. The famously advertising-shy company is spending real money to promote its “much-lauded instant product”—it launched the VIA ad campaign on Saturday Night Live. Instant coffee is a $17 billion market, globally, with American coffee drinkers “a small minority," so there’s clearly room for growth.
The "success or failure" could come down to taste, said Trent Rowe in The Ledger of Lakeland, Fla. In my taste test, the instant Italian Roast could “best be described as a nondescript brew,” maybe even a little “wimpy.” The price isn’t, though—at 12 packets for $10.
That’s kind of “expensive for instant coffee, but not for a Starbucks coffee,” said Talk About Coffee. And while the independent taste reviews have been “mixed,” they “trend toward the positive.” If nothing else, VIA lives up to its “ad line —‘not your mother’s instant coffee’—with plenty of room to spare,” and it might be a nice option for hikes or late nights at the office.
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4 Comments
Posted by swikabi, Monday, September 28, 2009, 2:34 pm good to know that something is brewing in this economy.
Posted by love it, Monday, September 28, 2009, 4:55 pm As a former barista with 'coffee education' behind me, I tend to be picky about what I put in my mug in the AM, but this is pretty good! Its easier to drink than the cupatatime machine we have at the office..and still tastes like something starbucks would sell behind the counters..I'm sold! Nice job sbux!
Posted by Mike Licht, Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 6:27 pm Are Starbucks employees baristas? Not according to the federal government. See: notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/baristabannedbyfinickyfeds/
Posted by Kate Newlin, Wednesday, October 21, 2009, 11:53 am Then, there's the chant that every Starbucks' Barrista had to say for a couple of weeks, offering free trials or asking if people would like to buy some packages...Eeck. The Barristas are supposed to be really coffeeinvolved pros. Not hucksters. Back off, guys. Back way off.The real benefit of VIA will probably come when it rolls out to Starbucks' grocery store distribution system....and hey! Why didn't you also come up with a Starbucks' version of Nespresso? For home and office? Way cooler. And, as the corporate boardrooms filled with stea
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