Starbucks Coffee and Its Target Audience Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Starbucks Coffee and Its Target Audience - Essay Example According to the Italian tradition coffee houses are like a place for conversation and that provides the customers with a sense of community. From the very beginning Starbucks has been a very different company. The company has not only celebrated the coffee and rich tradition but also successfully brought a feeling of connection. The company endeavors to bring an exceptional experience to the lives of its target market (Clark, Taylor 2007; Starbucks Corporation 2011) Starbucks’ target audience mainly comprises of the upscale coffee drinkers. The coffee chain provides an opportunity to its customers to take a break from the busy and hectic lives and spend some time in a relaxing atmosphere. Starbucks has a very well defined target audience. It has a target market in each age segment whether its adults, young adults or kids and teens. The primary target market of Starbucks consists of men and women aged between 25 to 40 years from urban areas and usually with high incomes. This target segment accounts for almost half the sales of the Starbucks. In order to appeal this target audience Starbucks works keep its products current and position them in such a way that they become a status symbol. Then comes the target market of young adults aged between 18 to 24 years. This segment accounts for 40 percent of the sales of the company. ... It makes it easier for the students whether they want to hang in there and work on their projects or it can be that they just want to hang in there to enjoy the coffee. The relaxing atmosphere provided by the Starbucks stores is an appealing factor to both the adult and young adult target audience. Now moving to the third target market segment that Starbucks is serving, comprising of kids and teens aged between 13 to 17 years. Though this segment is not large and accounts for only 2 percent of the total Starbucks sales, but still the company focuses on this segment. The main reason for the focus is that it is mainly the parents who purchase items for their kids. There are several products that Starbucks has just made for the kids and teenagers. Starbucks do not target the kids segment directly but it does make sure that its products are kid-friendly. The company also offers special child sizes in order to attract the kids (Starbucks Corporation 2011) Starbucks has formed a strong bra nd image in the minds of its target audience. It has used the selective specialization, product specialization and market specialization techniques for selecting its market segments. Target audience of Starbucks trusts the brand and associates it with high quality. There are certain requirements that the target market has from this famous brand as they look up to it with great admiration. The store has created a sense of convenience in the minds of its customers. Almost where ever they go, especially in United States they’ll found a Starbucks franchise within the respective vicinity. This means that there are several places still left that do not cater to the target audience. These places do not have a Starbucks franchise and

Communication and practice within the early years environment Essay

Communication and practice within the early years environment - Essay Example By the exhaustive definition, we can say that it’s a process that can be termed as complex because it’s not a just a one way sending of message but also, receiving it and understanding its exact intent. It also requires the receiver to send a feedback to the sender of the message stating that he has understood the message. Wilbur Schramm (1954) said that the feedback is very important, because it justifies the extent to which the receiver has grasped the message, and if there is any mistake in the understanding of the meaning, it can be corrected there and then itself. It involves information from many sources, therefore the sender has to refine the raw data that he comes across and put it together in a more comprehendible manner so that it becomes easier for him to send the message as well as the receiver to understand it. The content of the message should be relevant to the situation the sender is in and it should also be clear and precise. This was also illustrated b y the model given by Shannon and Weaver (1949) namely The Information Processing Theory. Wherein he said that a full loop of communication has a source, source’s message, a transmitter, a signal and a receiver. The receiver again sends a message which has to be sent to a particular destination. After this model Wilbur Schramm (1954) said that the sender encodes the message and the receiver decodes it to make sense of what has been imparted through the medium of a transmitter (a phone, a letter, face to face interaction, gestures etc.). According to him, the individual’s knowledge and experience play a vital role in the communication. The importance of feedback was also reinforced through his work. Next came the Berlo’s Model of communication in 1960. He argued that the source and receiver should communicate at the same level. With respect to children, Bandura (1977) devised a theory of imitation. According to him, children learn to communicate by observing and i mitating the parents and teachers. They try to make role models out of them. Seeing them behave them in particular manner, they act in the same way. When these associations happen over a period of time, these behaviors get reinforced and get deep seated. Interpersonal communication is a selective, systemic, unique, processual (is an ongoing process) transactions that allow people to reflect and build knowledge of one another and create shared meaning (wood, 2010). Dainton (2011) also argued that interpersonal communication as a process occurring between two individuals, when they are close in proximity, able to provide immediate feedback and utilize multiple senses. If we ponder over the former definition, we come to segregate the definition into its various subparts. Interpersonal communication has a selective nature, which means that we select people with whom we want to communicate. We meet a plethora of people every day, but we don’t quite have any associations with these people. Secondly, we can describe the aforementioned phenomena as systemic, which means that it takes place within and around before stated systems that are valid as well as reliable. Thirdly, the process of interpersonal communication is unique in its own right because like it’s mentioned above, every human is different and therefore the way