Abstract
Starbucks Coffee is a chain of cafes. The escorted image is the one of the Central Park Perks Café (the one of the TV Show Friends): a warm and cosy place where beautiful young smart and intellectual people are going to relax after a hard work day. A place where you are not leaning at the counter but comfortably seated in armchairs, and where the drinks are not served in a common with cup but in a design bowl or a vintage cup. So giving to the customer the feeling of a non-mass produced coffee.
1987 they sold the Starbucks chain to Howard Schultz. Quickly the brand began to expand and opened its first locations outside Seattle in Vancouver, British Columbia and Chicago (the same year). During 1992-96 the brand knew a great expansion, in 1995 one store per day were opened. It's also this year that Starbucks chairman decided to created a real brand identity (with specific designs, color, furniture). These changes permit to create the “Starbucks Experience”
The first Starbucks location outside of North America opened in Tokyo in 1996. Starbucks entered the U.K. market in 1998 with the acquisition of the then 60-outlet Seattle Coffee Company, re-branding all its stores as Starbucks
