[Dixielandjazz] Jazz in the Coffee House - Deja Vu?

[Steve Barbone]

CAVEAT - LONG ARTICLE - LIMITED OKOM - MAY NOT SUIT YOUR PERSONAL TASTE.

On the other hand, there is some interesting "trend" information here about
the distribution of music. Read the last 4 paragraphs, if nothing else. Who
amongst us gray bearded OKOM band leaders will figure out how to exploit the
12,500 points of sale in the Starbucks Chain, with relevant music?

Or how about the new, young, OKOM band leaders? Especially that pretty
trumpet player, what's her name? Oh yeaH, Bria. Starbucks should be smart
enough to love the idea of playing and distributing your CDs. Then everyone
in the prime demographic group will remember your name.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


NY TIMES - October 22, 2006 - By SUSAN DOMINUS

The Starbucks Aesthetic

WHEN Bette Gottfried, a 48-year-old regular at a Starbucks in Ardsley, N.Y.,
saw that her favorite coffeehouse was promoting a film, she wasn¹t
immediately interested. ³At first I was leery,² said Ms. Gottfried, dressed
in workout clothes, wearing her hair in a ponytail and sitting near the
window with her daily decaf mocha (³low-fat milk, no foam, no whipped²). ³I
thought, ŒWho are they to get involved in the movies?¹ ²

Ultimately, however, she decided to take her 9-year-old daughter to see the
film, ³Akeelah and the Bee,² precisely because of the involvement of
Starbucks. ³I trusted seeing the movie, because it was promoted here,² she
said. After all, she liked the company¹s coffee; she had already bought and
liked several CD¹s it produced and sold, compilations of music by Carole
King, Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra. Why wouldn¹t she like a Starbucks
movie? She did, and now she¹s considering picking up its latest cultural
sales item: ³For One More Day,² a book by Mitch Albom.

But Ms. Gottfried¹s question is a valid one. Starbucks is clearly very good
at selling coffee, but why should it become involved in the movies ‹ and
books and CD¹s, for that matter? And why would consumers trust its taste in
books and films any more than they¹d trust, say, Simon & Schuster¹s taste in
Ethiopia Gemadro Estate decaf?

Yet the chain is increasingly positioning itself as a purveyor of
premium-blend culture. ³We¹re very excited, because despite how much we¹ve
grown, these are the early stages for development,² said Howard Schultz, the
chairman of Starbucks. ³At our core, we¹re a coffee company, but the
opportunity we have to extend the brand is beyond coffee; it¹s
entertainment.² 

In an early misstep, Starbucks started offering Joe, a literary magazine
that appeared in 1999 and lasted all of six months before Mr. Schultz
decided, on the basis of slow sales, that the product ³didn¹t add any
value.² But since then Starbucks has successfully promoted a slew of hits,
from the Ray Charles CD ³Genius Loves Company,² a joint venture with Concord
Records that won several Grammy Awards and sold 800,000 copies at Starbucks
alone, to a recent CD of Meryl Streep reading ³The Velveteen Rabbit.² In
some cases, as with the Ray Charles album, Starbucks partners with an
existing label; but even when it merely stocks another label¹s titles, said
Ronn Werre, president of EMI Music Marketing, it is typically responsible
for at least 10 percent of overall sales; when it recently started selling
the Frank Sinatra classic ³In the Wee Small Hours,² sales of that CD went up
twentyfold. This month, Starbucks landed a coveted and very prominent retail
section on the iTunes home page, one of only two brands to enjoy that
privilege. 

Mr. Albom¹s book, published by Hyperion, marks the next piece of the
expanding Starbucks cultural portfolio. The chain¹s creative team has
already been looking for additional original films to present and is
thinking about producing movies down the road. And Mr. Schultz said it was
³not out of the question that we would self-publish² new authors. Some of
the chain¹s projects have been relatively intimate and artsy ‹ for example,
two several-day-long salons, one at the Sundance Film Festival, one in New
York, where the doors were open to free spoken-word performances, musical
collaborations and one-act plays. But the company clearly wants to have a
national impact as well.

On Thursday, in hopes of sparking communitywide dialogue about ³For One More
Day,² 25 Starbucks stores around the country will feature discussion groups.
(To ease the flow of conversation, free coffee will be provided.)

Sounding a bit caffeinated himself, Mr. Schultz explained, ³With the assets
Starbucks has in terms of number of stores, and the trust we have with the
brand, and the profile of our customers, we¹re in a unique position to
partner with creators of unique content to create an entertainment platform
and an audience that¹s unparalleled.²

The heart of that audience is a group the company refers to as its ³core
customers² ‹ educated, with an average age of 42 and an average income of
$90,000. About 15 years ago, Mr. Schultz said, Starbucks began ³to observe
the fracturing of the retail music industry and the consumer experience
becoming something that our core customers were no longer enjoying.² So they
started selling CD¹s of the music they¹d already been playing in the stores.

It still works. ³If I hear a CD they¹re playing, I generally like it,² Bette
Gottfried, back in the Ardsley store, said. ³It¹s who I am ‹ baby boomer,
upper middle class, a little hippyish, rockish. ...²

As Mr. Schultz sees it, customers get a new cultural experience and
Starbucks gets a ³halo² ‹ the associations people have with beloved music,
with ³quality, good will, trust, intelligence.²

To cultivate that halo, he built an entertainment division, with an office
in Seattle and another in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, Nikkole Denson, 36,
who ran the entertainment and film departments of Magic Johnson¹s
entertainment company, is the chain¹s director of business management, in
charge of fielding and negotiating film and book selections. (Starbucks
works closely with the William Morris Agency as well.) She says ³Akeelah and
the Bee,² a movie about a young black girl from South Los Angeles with a
talent for spelling, is a perfect example of her company¹s cultural profile.

³Starbucks is all about community and inspiration, and everything in that
movie seemed aligned with that ‹ it has that human connection,² Ms. Denson
said. ³It doesn¹t have to be a family film, but it does have to be socially
relevant.² As for the books she¹s selecting ‹ they won¹t all be by name
brands like Mr. Albom ‹ she says she wants books that provide ³almost an
education without being preachy.² Yes, they should be inspiring, but also,
she hopes, challenging: ³not racy or dark, but thought-provoking.²

A major player in the company¹s music business is Timothy Jones, manager of
compilations and music programming. Mr. Jones, 58, ran a small independent
record shop in Seattle until 1987, when his business folded and he started
managing the Starbucks across the street. Customers there asked if they
could buy the mixes of Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis he was playing, and
that¹s how it all got started. What he looks for now, he says, is ³a
believable sound that isn¹t too harsh.²

Mr. Jones championed Madeleine Peyroux when she was a critically acclaimed
singer who had never quite hit it big; since her album ³Careless Love²
started selling at Starbucks, its sales have CD tripled.

³We do our best with a new artist when there¹s sort of an NPR buzz going on
around him, the stars-in-the-making,² Mr. Jones said. ³Then we take a
Decemberists or a Madeleine Peyroux and put it out there in the spotlight of
the coffeehouse, and people standing in line say, ŒI¹ve heard about this
person.¹ ² 

Balancing out the newer artists are the classics Starbucks sells packaged in
coffee hues of sepia: Tony Bennett, Etta James, Marvin Gaye. ³It¹s like
European-style roasted coffee,² Mr. Jones said. ³It¹s reaching back, it¹s
timeless.² 

THE more cultural products with which Starbucks affiliates itself, the more
clearly a Starbucks aesthetic comes into view: the image the chain is trying
to cultivate and the way it thinks it¹s reflecting its consumer.

There¹s the faintest whiff of discriminating good taste around everything
Starbucks sells, a range of products designed, on some level, to flatter the
buyer¹s self-regard. Starbucks stores don¹t carry ³Sgt. Pepper¹s Lonely
Hearts Club Band,² the Beatles album everyone¹s mother could name; they
carry ³Revolver,² a critical darling without the same overplayed name
recognition. 

Might DVD sales be the next frontier? And if so, which DVD¹s? Ms. Denson
wouldn¹t say, but it¹s an entertaining exercise for a reporter to try to
guess: For the holiday season, perhaps a movie like ³White Christmas² ‹ it¹s
retro-chic, it¹s got the classy crooner Bing Crosby going for it, yet it¹s
not quite as overplayed as, say, ³Miracle on 34th Street.² Throw in some
never-before-seen outtakes, package it in a beautiful silver and black box.
... 

³You¹re pretty close there,² Ms. Denson said. ³Very, very close.² So close,
in fact, that later that day she sent over a press release: Starting next
month, in conjunction with Turner Classics, the ³White Christmas² DVD will
be available exclusively at Starbucks, packaged for the first time with a
Decca recording of the film¹s soundtrack and an informative 12-page booklet
that includes a list of other must-see Christmas movies. Inspirational but
not hokey, familiar but not ubiquitous, gently educational ‹ it¹s tailor-
made for the NPR-listening type Mr. Jones imagines as the typical Starbucks
consumer. 

Mr. Schultz said the company was eager to offer customers products that are
³out of the mainstream.² Starbucks itself used to be out of the mainstream,
back when it started in Seattle. But that was before it took over the world
(well, almost). Championing the little guy ‹ Ms. Peyroux, some new bossa
nova artist ‹ can be a relatively easy way to offset the sense of alienation
that overreplicated chains inspire.

³It adds to the emotional connection with the customer,² said Mr. Schultz,
and keeps the Starbucks experience from feeling, as he put it, ³antiseptic.²

Of course, the moment Starbucks chooses to promote an artist ‹ prominent
space on the company¹s Web page, access to its 5,400 stores throughout the
country, possible discussion groups and so on ‹ that artist almost by
definition becomes mainstream.

But that may not matter to consumers. ³You know, it¹s not that different
from feeling cool because you¹ve got an Apple computer,² said the novelist
Jonathan Lethem. Mr. Lethem was one of the well-regarded,
not-quite-mainstream artists who were featured at the New York Starbucks
salon, which he experienced as a supportive environment for creative work.
As for the Starbucks sensibility itself, he said, ³It¹s the faint affect of
a counterculture shackled to the most ordinary, slightly upscale product² ‹
just more of what he describes as the ³faux-alternative² aesthetic that¹s
been around for decades.

These days the so-called long tail model of cultural consumption ‹ the 1.5
million songs on iTunes, the 55,000 films on Netflix ‹ is getting a lot of
attention among business theorists, and teenage boys are getting a lot of
attention from the entertainment complex. But Starbucks relies on a previous
model: a narrow range of blockbuster hits geared toward an older, educated
audience.

The book publishing industry could benefit from such a tastemaking force,
said Laurence Kirshbaum, founder of the LJK Literary Management agency. ³One
of the big problems in the book industry is that outside e of Oprah, there¹s
no really widely accepted authority to recommend books,² Mr. Kirshbaum said.

At the same time, he expressed concern on behalf of the traditional
bookstore. ³The concern is that, in a business that¹s essentially flat, can
Starbucks provide additional buyers? Or is it going to be pilfering buyers
from existing accounts?²

Thomas Hay, a 48-year-old contractor from Hartsdale, N.Y., said Starbucks
helped him by editing down his cultural choices. Looking over the selections
the company makes, he said, he has the impression that ³some people of
caring hearts and minds have looked at this and felt it was worthwhile and
beneficial and would create a good vibe in the world.²

Karen Golden, 43, and Kirk Sipe, 53, also customers at that Ardsley
Starbucks, said that they were unlikely to buy a CD there ‹ at $15, they
could get it cheaper from Amazon ‹ but that the company¹s choices solidified
their respect for the brand. ³They could go with what¹s ultramarketable, but
good for them for promoting people who don¹t get airplay,² said Ms. Golden,
a psychotherapist from nearby Dobbs Ferry. Asked to describe the kind of
music and movies they expected to find there, they rattled off language that
could have come straight from a Starbucks marketing plan: ³quality,² ³what
will endure,² ³people who have something to say.²

When Starbucks executives describe the goal of the company¹s cultural
extensions, they invariably lean on the word discovery. ³Customers say one
of the reasons they come is because they can discover new things ‹ a new
coffee from Rwanda, a new food item. So extending that sense of discovery
into entertainment is very natural for us. That¹s all part of the Starbucks
experience,² said Anne Saunders , senior vice president of global brand
strategy and communications.

Even the keyboardist Herbie Hancock, whose recent album ³Possibilities² has
been a strong seller at Starbucks, buys the idea. ³Going to Starbucks,² he
said, ³you feel kind of hip. I feel kind of hip when I go to Starbucks;
that¹s how I know!² He said people of every age had told him they weren¹t
familiar with his work until it appeared there, then he called back to say
he¹d never gotten better promotion in his life.

Mr. Schultz said one the most valuable assets in the Starbucks culture
project was the chain¹s wireless Web-access network. ³What¹s coming is an
opportunity to leverage WiFi as a channel,² he said, ³and that channel is
going to have the ability to expose our customers digitally to unique
content.² He added: ³It¹s not a stretch to think of Starbucks in a new way
as a network. A new channel with 12,500 points of distribution,² with every
point representing a Starbucks store around the world.

And that channel, no doubt, will be geared toward the
European-coffee-drinking, CD-liner-notes-reading, singer-songwriter-loving
Starbucks customers, who now not only relax at the same coffee shops but
also go home and listen to the same jazz release while possibly reading the
same reliably entertaining, even inspirational, book. At the Starbucks in
Ardsley, prominently displayed on the wall is a poster of an elephant
lumbering comfortably along in the burnt-sienna rays of the sun. Below the
image is printed, in typewriterlike letters, a message from Starbucks that
the company has made, through its good taste, increasingly tempting: ³Move
with the herd.²