An Unlikely Blend

Why aren't there any Starbucks in Italy? Asks Daniel Scocco of Innovation Zen in a comment to my last post.

I must admit that I have not seen any in my neck of the woods around Modena, but would like to invite my friends Gianandrea Facchini of bizandbuzz in Rome and Maurizio Goetz of Marketing Usabile in Milan to weigh in with their thoughts and information.

Meanwhile, I ran a Google search and came up with some interesting bits of information in no particular order:

• There exists a site called ihatestarbucks.com containing a heated discussion from this past summer. One thing of notice is that soon the conversation around brand spills over into the personal and becomes a discussion on cultural differences.
• A barista in Tokyo, Mitsuru Sakuraba, is trying to persuade his home town coffee drinkers that quality counts. See the article titled appropriately, the Italian Job, in Metropolis, Japan's English magazine.
• An answer provided to the same question Daniel posed in Yahoo! Answers catches a less than flattering response: "In Italy we call that 'dirty water'".
• Illy, the inventor of espresso in Italy in the 1930s, positions the famous brew as premium not unlike the Gucci of coffees. See the article published in The New York Times on December 26, 2006. Illy is quoted to say that they have taken the battle onto Starbucks' home turf for 25 years. They can be found, not surprisingly, in upscale shops like Whole Foods Markets.
• My search also took me to an Italian blog where the author posted an entry on Starbucks coffee because he says Google indexed him a while back on a short write up he did, and now every time someone like me searches the words, they land on his blog.

You get the idea. My two cents on Italian coffee and why Starbucks is an unlikely blend in Italy (I've been proven wrong before):

1. True espresso coffee is an experience hardly any Italian gives up. It is often accompanied by a little pastry -- and I mean little -- a cigarette smoke, and a quick read of the sports section of the daily news. If the customer needs it, the caffe' quickly becomes "corretto", which means a splash of liquor graces it.
2. The corner bar (that's how we call cafes) is cozy and the choice is personal. Each bar brings its own experience and clientele. In Modena we have Il Caffe' dell'Orologio near Piazza Grande, the main square, where a coffee can become a delightful blend of caffeine, chocolate and whipped cream in a champaigne flute with little salatini on the side or remain its old, marvelous self. In the summer, you can sit outside between the store windows of Max Mara and iBlues. I'm there only once a year, but they remember my name. There are many others, of course. Including one that makes the best hot chocolates in winter -- they literally coat your bones and protect you from the rigors of weather.
3. Each bar has its own clientele and personality, even time of the day. When I'm there with my family, we head to one in the early morning, one in midmorning, and yet another one in late morning. All cafes work double duty, becoming aperitif places in the afternoon -- clever they are, and pleasure-loving we are. My favorite hangout for the afternoon and early evening cocktail or drink is the Caffe' Concerto in Piazza Grande, Modena. In the spring and summer they have tables outside where you can sit, relax, listen to the music, and watch the world go by and the sunset kiss the red bricks of the buildings and pink marble of the cathedral.

Have I sold you yet of the many reasons why a Starbucks chain would be an unlikely blend in Italy? Even here, I have been avoiding them in favor of the comfort and intimacy of local coffee shops. We used to gather at a local Starbucks, but they since eliminated most places to sit, made the music louder, and the baristas crankier. The profit machine must keep feeding itself, I guess.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

Comments

[gianandrea facchini]

valeria, hope you may forgive me but i'm a starbucks fan. and i did ask for many times why they do not open in italy.
i agree with some of your points. last week i was in florence and had breakfast at the caffè delle giubbe rosse: the place where was born lacerba, the magazine of the futurism movement with contributing artists such a picasso at the beginning of last century, a place where you can breath culture, a place where two capuccini and two pastries cost 20 euros. is it a fair price for the place? maybe yes but i cannot afford it daily.
anyway coming back to starbucks, i do believe that it may succeed to enter in italy. the comparison should be done between starbucks and the everyday coffee shops where we land: the average quality is not so outstanding nor you can always count on a polite service and eventually they are crowded and noisy. at least this is in the big cities such as rome and milan. you and me were lucky people born and raised in the rich medium sized cities!!!another key factor is that we love stuff coming from abroad, it makes us feeling smarter and cool. in the end if starbucks was able to deliver quality and service, why not?

[Maurizio Goetz]

Valeria, I can't tell you why Starbucks is not considering Italy as a market, but I can observe that there are new coffee bar opening in Italy which I would not define Starbucks like but with some kind of innovation. One example for all Lino's Coffee http://www.linoscoffee.com/
This is quite new in Italy, but I think italians are ready for something different even in the coffee experience.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Gianandrea -- I was going to make that point as well about people always liking what is foreign. I might have found the good places in Rome as I had excellent coffee and experience when I was there. I knew of your liking the Starbucks brand and thought your point of view would be particularly interesting to have for that reason. Thank you.

Maurizio -- I think the strategy for waiting on Italy might have something to do with the established brands like Illy as outlined in the NYT article I linked to. Italians are always ready for something different; I'm thinking especially of fashion here. However, the personal experience in Italy is more important than anywhere else in Europe. Here when I go to a store I often feel like an "it" useful only for a transaction. In Italy I feel like a "you" whether they address me with "tu" or "voi".

[Daniel Scocco]

Valeria, thanks for picking this up!

I asked the question in the first place because I was puzzled about it myself, and I had a small theory behind it.

Your post inspired me to write down my own theory behind the Starbucks' decision, I hope you will have the time to check it out.

Also, in my opinion your reasons are completely true, and they represent the first part of my equation.

[Timothy Johnson]

Valeria - brilliant piece of analysis. I'm not a coffee drinker per se (more into frappes), but the allure of a cozy coffee shop is what entices me. This is why Starbucks has caught on in this country; it has been able to emulate the experience over the product. People are not purchasing coffee; they are purchasing intimacy, friendship, and the interactive experience.

We in the U.S. are very chain-driven. Our mindset is convenience and speed. Starbucks caters to the "fast food" mentality of those who want it, while providing the opportunity for social interaction for those who do prefer to slow down and savor.

Will Starbucks ever succeed in Italy? Highly doubtful. The cultural differences you detailed in your post really make me want to hop on a plane to Italy, however.

Great thoughts!

[Valeria Maltoni]

Daniel -- this is becoming a conversation to have in one of those little espresso bars with many stuzzichini (savories) and this great group of people here. You have added the whole dimension of slow vs. fast food culture to the discussion in your post, which Timothy here picks up on nicely.

Timothy -- what nice company. Should we head to Caffe' Concerto to continue the exchange? I'm for it!

[Chris]

Starbucks can succeed in Italy, but only if they embrace their heritage as an American consumer experience.

They can't compete on coffee alone: Italy wrote the book. Same with the whole idea of café culture. Europe was there first. It's gotta be about the U.S. of A.

And that's a tougher sell these days, thanks to politics. But I'm sure Starbucks will find the right moment. And then Italians can enjoy hard seats; over-roasted, inexpensive coffee blends; and the joys of a 400-calorie coffee drink. ;-)

[Joe Raasch]

Hi Valeria,

See the post on Employee Value Proposition in my blog. The Starbucks reference talks about why they are successful: it isn't about coffee. It is about 'the experience'.

In America people are desperate to connect again. Attached garages, Internet (just like this), Cable TV...entertainment is at our fingertips. Yet this doesn't feed the human need for real, face-to-face community and interaction.

Having not taken the opportunity yet to travel to Italy, I expect that if the experience is important to the market, Starbucks will be there with the Starbucks experience.

They are in Vienna, and doing ok. Even smoke-free, virtually a sin in a Viennese coffee house.

[Richard Dowling]

Very interesting post Valeria,

I live in Spain which has a similar coffee culture to Italy. A lot of the cafeterias are owned by families, which means you get a continuity of service and the ability to make long-term relationships with the owners.

Of course, sometimes, the service may not be very good, but in my local cafeteria we are on first name terms, and it is very comfortable.

You are right that Starbucks is a "fast-food" mentality and they could never hope to compete with the classic family cafeteria.

I actually like Starbucks and those chains, but I would be a little sad if they encroached in Spain in a big way.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Chris -- I agree with you. The only way it can work in Italy is by selling the American brand. Gianandrea hinted at that in his comment as well.

Joe -- thank you for taking the time to stop in and for providing information from your blog. Yes, people need contact and I do wonder, does a perfunctory hello by a busy barista in a chain store satisfy that?

Richie -- well, if the service is not good, people just don't go. It's that simple and it happens all the time.

I was having a conversation today with a friend I met at one of the local coffee shops, right across from a Starbucks. He once learned from a barista that the company trains their staff to contradict their customers. Try this: you order a small latte and the barista comes back asking if you meant a tall latte. Interesting.

[Chris]

Well, if Italians *really* want the American coffee experience, I'll be happy to sell it to them: styrofoam cups; sickly sweet creamer made of who-the-hell-knows; watery coffee unspoiled by crema or anything that reminds you its beans once grew on a mountainside somewhere; surly service dispensed by a bored employee in an embarrassing branded ballcap; and glaring fluorescent lighting designed to keep you from settling into a rock-hard, too-small plastic booth for longer than 20 minutes.

Yeah, it'll suck. But each store and menu would be exactly the same from Modena to Rome, and there's a lot to be said for a consistent consumer experience.

Right? ;-)

[Sherry Borzo]

I love this topic because it hits close to home here in Des Moines, Iowa where locally owned shops ignited our taste for good coffee and then the chains like Starbucks came in. Unfortunately, there are some who will always prefer a guarantee of the "same experience" rather than an original one so they like the chains that dot cities and towns.

The coffee cafes in Italy we experienced embodied the value of small business perfected because people seem to identity with them so much. I wonder though if tourists from the United States will influence offering coffee "to go" cups. We never saw them offered when we've been there. It would be a shame if shops did offer "to go" but they'd probably sell a lot of coffee to tourists from the United States! We like to walk around with our styrofoam cups all day.

[Valeria Maltoni]

This conversation is gathering the steam of a morning cappuccino!

Chris -- in Italy, il caffe' is a social experience, just like meals. What would be the point to be on your lonesome self, hugging a plastic item that could never possibly hug you back?

Sherry -- going for the exported chain experience will deprive you of adventurous encounters. So why visit? And going into a Starbucks does not guarantee the same experience anyway. People who travel from the US to Italy are not as plentiful as advertised, and generally are more cosmopolitan; they think out of the plastic cup.