Big Coffee's Wake-up Call

In their attempt to reach Gen Yers, Folgers et al. are reminiscent of another old industry that's married to an old demo—newspapers. Like newspaper reading, coffee drinking is a habit that is generally started fairly young and if you miss that opportunity, you miss it forever. While newspapers grapple with new competition from the Internet plus old competition from TV and the radio, those coffee marketers face energy drinks, herbal teas and bottled water, not to mention take-away coffee chains like Starbucks. And Starbucks itself is something of a red herring. In the town where I live, the local Starbucks outlet is frequently packed with teens, but they're usually ordering frou-frou drinks that often contain no coffee. Since image, rather than caffeine, is at the heart of their choice, it's easy to see such fickle customers drawn away by McD's or even Cold Stone Creamery if either is suddenly perceived as the new hip locale.

BrandWeek