(International Library of Sociology) Celia Lury - Brands_ The Logos of the Global Economy-Routledge (2004)

of flexible specialisation (Harvey, 1990; Lash and Urry, 1994; Castells,
1996). These are processes in which production is flexibly organised for
specialised rather than mass production and decentralised through the
use of communication media and information technologies. These
changes mean that product differentiation in terms of function is less
and less often able to sustain competitive advantage (because it can be
imitated so quickly). At the same time, the production process is itself
more flexible, more able to adapt or flexibly respond to requirements
for new or differentiated products. But marketing played a key role in
the organisation of this flexibility, especially in so far as it contributes
to an active role for changing conceptions of the consumer. Marketing
not only provides the rationale for increasing the rate of product
differentiation (as markets are conceived to be dynamic), but also
provides the framework within which product differentiation occurs (as
markets are reconfigured in terms provided by marketing knowledge
about the consumer). The brand must thus be seen in the context of an
economy in which flexibility is a necessity, in which the dynamic
differentiation of products enables the management of change.
Starbucks: ‘There are no heroes…. What we’ve done is provide a
safe harbor’
One example of the commercial exploitation of the multi-dimensional
objectivity of the brand as it has developed in recent years is
Starbucks.3 In the postwar period, the market for coffee in the USA had
been dominated by three big companies: Nestlé, General Foods, and
Procter and Gamble. Together they controlled nearly 60 per cent of
roasted coffee and 80 per cent of instant coffee sales. However, coffee
consumption began to fall in the mid-1960s. By the late 1980s, about
half the US population over the age of 10 did not consume coffee at all,
and coffee consumption had fallen behind that of soft drinks. But over
the same period, a speciality coffee market began to develop, although
no one single company dominated the market. In this context, the aim
of the soon-to-be Starbucks CEO Howard Schulz was to transform
coffee from a commodity (‘something to be bagged and sent home with
the groceries’) into a branded offering that consumers associated with
(consistent) quality, service and community. In undertaking this
transformation, he sought to bring about a reorganisation of the market
corresponding to a shift from a commodity market to a brand market.
This involved the reframing of the market in terms of consumer
preferences as identified in marketing research. At this time, market
research in the United States identified an increasing preference for
‘natural foods’—that is, foods perceived to be less processed and more
nutritious; a rise in the acceptance of ‘ethnic’ foods; and a greater
emphasis on taste (in its full range of meanings) in consumer decision-