Social Media Monitoring Project 2: Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte!

What are the things you love about fall? for me, it is the weather, nature, especially the colorful leaves, and the sky. Who can forget? About Halloween and the pumpkin patches!

Orange Leaves, It's fall!

Talking about pumpkin, have you tried pumpkin spice latte?

Pumpkin Spice Latte

Well, this seasonal drink is one of the most viral drink ever. People go crazy about PSL; some of them wait for the pumpkin spice season to hit.

Pumpkin spice latte was first introduced by Starbucks, the American company from Seattle, Washington, the world's largest coffee chain. With the help of great social media promotions, PSL gained its own fan following and buzz.

Starbucks ' social media is doing great; if we see social media platforms, they have many followers and subscribers, as we have discussed in the earlier blog.

 

Starbucks Instagram Page

• Facebook with more than a 36million likes
• 18 million followers on Instagram
• 11 million followers on Twitter
• almost 300k subscribers on YouTube.

 

Aesthetic Fall vibe

Right now, their social media is all about their seasonal drinks for fall and their most beloved drink, Pumpkin spice latte. They have created a whole interesting fall vibe in their social media pages, keeping their customer's experience above all. Starbucks is great at making their customers feel like a community, and they care about them with their small replies on social media.

Starbucks replying to their customers on Facebook

So, what makes Pumpkin spice latte so popular? Maybe because it is a seasonal drink, and its periodic recurrence generates major buzz, with it, PSL also brings in the feeling of nostalgia when it comes back. People have an emotional connection with pumpkins and pumpkin pies, which helps them develop strong relations and bond with the drink, which evokes those emotions. 

Without even realizing, PSL has started to become a part of the fall culture. This also created a trend for other companies to introduce their own versions of Pumpkin spice lattes following Starbucks.

People including PSL in their Fall season celebration!

So, for the promotion of PSL and other Fall drinks, Starbucks uses social media pretty well. They create user-generated content in which people share their stories through their posts related to the Starbucks drinks, and the company posts it on their own social media page. 

Starbucks sharing customer post on their Instagram page

Even though Starbucks PSL is not available all around the year when it is introduced on the menu during fall. People try their best to savor this delicious drink until the time it is available.

Starbucks Google Trend

In the Google Trends report, Starbucks has the highest peak between 22nd December - 28th December. This depicts the time of the Christmas holidays. The graph's lowest point is from April 5-11, 2020, due to the recent Corona Virus pandemic started. If we see the recent months, the interest increases again, and the line is going upwards.

Dunkin' vs Starbucks

Starbucks PSL has many big competitions, and one of them is Dunkin', so, to compare them, we have a graph by google trend showing both the company's PSL interest over time.

Starbucks and Dunkin' PSL comparison on google trends

Starbucks PSL is on the lead, reaching the highest peak in August 23rd-29th 2020; it is when Starbucks first introduced the drink in 2020, and Dunkin' has its highest peak on August 16th - 22nd as they introduced their PSL earlier than Starbucks.  If we see the trend, people show more interest in Starbucks in the USA than Dunkin'.

Starbucks PSL social mention

Dunkin' PSL social mention

Let's compare PSL from both Starbucks and Dunkin' on social mention. We can see that strength-wise, Starbucks has 2% strength while Dunkin' stays at 0%. in sentiments, Starbucks has a good ratio of 19:1 in comparison to Dunkin's sentiment ratio of 5:1. Starbucks PSL has a more positive sentiment than its neutral and negative, which tells a lot about people loving this drink by Starbucks.

In terms of passion, Dunkin' PSL is nowhere near the Starbucks PSL cult, which leads by 69% passion, whereas Dunkin' has only 9% passion. The social media reach of Starbucks PSL is 14%, and Dunkin' beats it by 20%.

Starbucks PSL has 16 hours average per mention, while Dunkin has 3 days average per mention.

Altogether Starbucks is doing great in their campaign for Pumpkin spice latte, better than the rest of their competitors.

There are some weaknesses that Starbucks needs to look upon. First would be the pricing; if we look at Starbucks' price, they are slightly expensive than their competitors. 

The cost of Grande(16-ounce) hot or iced Starbucks PSL is between $5.25-$5.75, depending on the location. In contrast, other companies like Dunkin' provide their Signature Pumpkin Latte for around $3.79 for (16-ounce). Forced Dunkin' Pumpkin spice latte medium(24-ounce) it will cost $4.29. Starbucks ' price gets too expensive for people to drink it on a daily basis, so this can become a reason for people to try a different brand.

Starbucks Google trend worldwide

Starbucks also requires adapting to different cultures as it is spread worldwide; it tries to keep its brand image as an American company. Which is not helpful in the international market; local people can't connect to Starbucks.

People Boycotting Starbucks due to UK Tax fraud

Starbucks also has a considerable loss of credibility after their Tax avoidance scandal and lack of social responsibility. They have been criticized for not paying tax in the UK for 3 years consecutively, during 2010 -2012. So, this risks the brand image for Starbucks, and people might avoid them because of it.

In conclusion, Starbucks knows very well how to stay on top of the competition; they are doing great on social media, people love them, but they need to improve on their product pricing, adapt to different cultures in the international market and the most important is that they require to regain and maintain a socially responsible image.

 

So, we have discussed a lot about Pumpkin Spice Latte. I guess many of you have started drooling on this delicious drink; if you haven't tried it yet, you must try it fast as it's a limited-time beverage. You will only get to savor it next fall.