Starbucks is launching a new prestige brand to attract millennials. The company plans to create new brand stores and up to 30 showcase “roaster and tasting rooms,” according to Fortune magazine.
Consumers can find Starbucks coffee just about anywhere — in airports, Targets, the grocery store. And that ubiquity has become a problem with millennials, a core demographic the company wants to attract, according to a story in Fortune magazine.
“Starbucks is the millennials’ parents’ coffee house and Starbucks is acutely aware of that,” said Ric Rhinehart, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America.
To recapture some of the brand’s former exclusive cachet among discerning young coffee drinkers, Starbucks is building a new prestige brand. CEO Howard Schultz plans to step down in April to focus on creating 1,000 new “Reserve” brand stores and up to 30 showcase “roastery and tasting rooms” in major metros around the world.
The company already has added Reserve bars to a handful of Starbucks shops in major cities including New York. There, a cup of coffee (made in glass siphons) can sell for $10, or customers can shell out $10 for a flight of Reserve and nitro cold brew selections.
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