Reaching a specific audience is hard, especially when things like budgeting

are involved. In the last year, Starbucks spent a little less than $78 million on

advertising to major media outlets, 47% of which was spent on magazine

ads.4 This may do well to reach their standard consumer, but will it reach

families with young children?

Perhaps they could increase their cable TV advertising on family-friendly

channels and pump up their internet presence on parent-oriented websites,

since they spent only about $20 million on the two of these combined in the

last 12 months.4

Once again, there is no correct answer. But the channel of

communication is one of the most vital parts of the

advertising process, as it is the only way consumers receive

and decode communications from companies.

Continuing with our idea for an emotional ad campaign, it

would be best to broadcast something like this on

television, or in short video clips online, both of which are

great places for Starbucks to expand their advertising

presence.

The actual decoding of your advertising message is up to

the consumer, based on their fields of experience, channels

of communication, and the content of the message itself.

Your job is to make sure that they decode your message in

the way that you want them to.

To properly reach prospective Starbucks customers with young children,

the most important part is informing this group that Starbucks is a wel-

coming, healthy environment for their little ones. Once you can convince

them of this and make sure it really resonates with them, you can change

the group’s whole mindset about the Starbucks company as a whole and

what its products have to offer. This can pos-

itively impact sales in the long-term while

building a whole new segment of loyal cus-

tomers and a whole new generation of cus-

tomers who will hold Starbucks near and

dear to their hearts as their favorite place to

spend time in their childhood.5

If you’re going to sell anything,

you must first have a product.

Since this is a guide for

marketing to diverse groups,

let’s go with a coffee drink

from Starbucks.

Once again, our goal is to sell

something. Now you just need someone to sell it to.

This is where market segmentation comes into play.

So far, Starbucks seems to target middle to upper-

middle class consumers, who are typically between

the ages of 18 and 50.1 They do this by maintaining

a hip, contemporary brand image and by making

Starbucks stores a place to hang out, get work done,

and meet people.

Starbucks is already doing a great job of targeting

this audience, so let’s compare this market to one

that Starbucks could expand their reach to—

families with young children.

You can use demographic indicators to help you to

decide who fits into your market. For example, families

with young children would typically be indicated by

parents aged 25-35, both male and female, and would

fit into varieties of occupation, race, and income

indicators.4

The fields of user experience method is one

of many options when it comes to

frameworks for crafting an advertising

method. It is popularly used for marketing

products that appeal to specific market

segments, or can appeal to numerous

different types of markets.

For our specific group, Starbucks has

already done a great job of reaching their

fields of experience by setting up stores in

urban and suburban areas, inside stores like

Target, and by advertising on social media

where twenty-to-thirty-somethings will find

their messages and advertisements easily.

Luckily, Starbucks likely already reaches

most of our new target audience with these

methods, since young families spend their

time in many of these same places.

Most of us already know the message that Starbucks sends to its current target

audience. The name and the logo are synonymous with good coffee and a

trendy brand image for consumers today.3

But what about those young families? How can Starbucks send the message

that they belong in Starbucks stores? Should they include more children in

their advertising? Should they set up stores closer to elementary schools and

daycares? Should they make a kids menu? Should they pay for product

placement in family-friendly movies?

There is no right answer. Any one or combination of these could do the trick.

One proven way to send a strong message to families, would be to connect

their message to emotion. A great new ad campaign could feature happy, loving

children and families enjoying time together in their local Starbucks store.

Created by

Meagan Wells

This part is important, because no matter how important or awesome your message is, it will never

reach your audience if it’s not within their field of experience, or the area of content that they relate

to and understand.2