Dunkin' Donuts vs. Starbucks

For the record, I have been to Starbucks. In fact, I have been to Starbucks many times over the years. I once dated a woman who had one hellacious Starbucks habit requiring a daily visit. My own enjoyment of Starbucks has been on the level of a trip to the frozen yogurt place. It is a treat but not a habit. I do not understand the daily Starbucks drinker.

Starbucks is essentially the triumph of marketing over common sense. They don't have better coffee. In blind taste tests, coffee from Dunkin' Donuts beat Starbucks. Most people say that Starbucks has a burnt flavor to it. I can attest to drinking stuff from Starbucks that tasted like it came out of an ash tray. But taste is relative. People aren't buying coffee from Starbucks. You can get better and cheaper coffee elsewhere. What they are buying at Starbucks is the branding, the atmosphere, and the personal identity surrounding that coffee. This is why it is do damn expensive.



Starbucks is about self-image. People that go to Starbucks see themselves as sophisticated and urbane and intelligent. This is why the Starbucks menu is jammed with a bunch of crap. You can't just order a medium regular coffee. Ordering coffee at Starbucks requires using a completely different language. This can be damn annoying. They don't have small, medium, and large. They have tall, grande, and venti. What the fuck is this?

Starbucks can't be simple. The coffee isn't any better than anywhere else. But one of the things I have learned from blind taste tests is that people will pay more for the branding. It doesn't matter if it is beer, wine, or food. People want the brand and the identity that goes with that brand. The people at Starbucks know this. That chain is essentially pulling a massive con on the buying public selling crap coffee at hugely inflated prices. Naturally, the idiots buy the shit up.



I can understand paying more for value and quality. But when you strip away the marketing from Starbucks, it is just coffee. It is fundamentally no different than coffee from anywhere else. But Starbucks invests heavily in the theater around that coffee. They have those shops with the decor. The baristas perform a show with the making of the coffee which is why it takes forever to get a cup from there. Starbucks comes from ultra-hip Seattle. All of this is simply so much bullshit.



Dunkin' Donuts knows that Starbucks is bullshit, and they have called Starbucks out on it. You gotta love Dunkin' Donuts. They are simple. The coffee is delicious and always fresh. You get small, medium, and large. There is hardly any waiting. Their donuts and breakfast sandwiches are fresh and beat the crap out of the scones and other fancy Starbucks bullshit. Plus, the cost of Dunkin' Donuts is half of anything you would buy in a Starbucks. Dunkin' is a winner on all counts. So, why don't Starbucks people switch? That is simple. It goes back to identity.



Dunkin' Donuts is fundamentally blue collar. It doesn't mean that white collar people don't enjoy Dunkin'. But Dunkin' Donuts doesn't have the sophistication of Starbucks. Dunkin' Donuts is the choice of working people who don't have all day to wait for coffee or feel like learning Italian to order the stuff. They know a barista is really just a guy who couldn't get a job with his art history degree. There is simply zero bullshit with Dunkin' Donuts. In tough economic times like these, people want this kind of authenticity. Plus, it is easier on the wallet.

The Starbucks drinker is actually a conceited fool who has fallen prey to the hype and gets raped in the pocketbook for the sake of his or her ego. All luxury brands do this. They can charge a premium without offering additional value. If you doubt this, look at the price tags of a Lexus and a Toyota, and you will see a huge difference in price for what is fundamentally the same car. People aren't buying the car. They are buying the brand and the identity that goes with it. They are suckers.

The way to not be a sucker is to appraise yourself in a humbler light. Marketing depends on vanity, and despising this vanity is a recurring theme here at the C-blog. Without a doubt, Starbucks has done much to improve coffee across the board. People now drink lattes and cappucinos at McDonald's. This is the Starbucks effect. But all this does is show that Starbucks doesn't have to be expensive. Starbucks could easily drop their prices and still be very profitable. But a price cut would change the story of the marketing. Starbucks has to be expensive in the same way that Harvard has to be expensive by charging outlandish tuition for the same knowledge you can get from State U. or even iTunes U. Charging less diminishes the "value."

Do yourself and your wallet a favor. Quit being sophisticated. Don't be a snob with the java. Buy yourself some real coffee and stop paying extra for the bullshit.

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