For Starbucks, life is Jingalala

For a store that’s just a day old - and a store that’s just a coffee shop - the amount of free publicity Starbucks has received would have their corporate communications personnel forgetting about coffee and opening the bubbly.

It’s not just Indian media - leading foreign media, too, have been fawning over the launch. Financial Times, for example, says, “Starbucks, the Seattle-based global coffee chain, opened its first store in India on Friday, as it began its foray into the nascent caf culture of the traditionally tea-drinking subcontinent. The 4,500ft store - far larger than many Starbucks shops around the world - is located in a restored heritage building owned by Starbucks’ Indian partner, the Tata group, in the heart of Mumbai’s commercial district.”

“On Friday, the first of those stores - a 4,000-square-foot, two-level extravaganza filled with metal trunks, bright curtains and other Indian cornucopia - opened in south Mumbai off the historic Horniman Circle,” says the New York Times.

More from Business

Hyundai India’s Rs 27,870 crore IPO oversubscribed by 2.28X, largely driven by institutional investors How Indian fintech startups are driving Malaysia’s UPI-like digital payments revolution

[caption id=“attachment_497224” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Image from Starbucks India facebook page[/caption]

“Starbucks, the world’s largest coffeehouse chain, has finally opened its doors to Indian consumers with the launch of its first store in a Tata-owned property in south Mumbai. And the Seattle-based company had a few surprises up its sleeve for those who thought that the firm would outprice itself in the Indian market, keeping with its premium positioning. The 18,000-outlet company, which operates in 60 countries, has opted to price a cup of coffee in India between Rs 80 and Rs 200, while the food, an assortment of which is on offer at the store, is also priced in the range of Rs 80-200,” says Business Standard.

The Economic Times called the entry of Starbucks ‘India’s coffee moment’ (whatever that means) in a box within a front page story headlined, ‘Starbucks is here, almost starry-eyed’ (whatever that means).

Impact Shorts

More Shorts

Tata Harrier EV vs Mahindra XEV 9e: Design and road presence compared

As Trump weaponises tariff, Fed sees a bigger worry: Not jobs, but rising prices in America

Twitter was abuzz with Starbucks chatter.

@mignione_nick said, Helloooooooooooo Mumbai.! 1st thing on d agenda - inaugurating the new Starbucks in town. YaY!!!

?@shubhraraje saw Starbucks as just one in a million. “Howard Schultz says the store in India will be “a shrine to Starbucks coffee”. After a million gods, what’s one more?,” she says.

@ShilpaSShah isn’t a big fan and has contempt for big fans - but she gives Starbucks free publicity all the same. Her status update has the brand mentioned twice, eating up 18 of the 140 characters twitter generously gives her. “Now this is called pathetic: Starbucks opens in mumbai and everyone has Starbucks India as their BB display pic. I think people need a life,” she says.

@diogeneb links the Starbucks launch to happenings in North India. “If Starbucks opens in Haryana, it’d have to offer Khapuccino,” he says.

@b50 underlines the fact that you do not have to visit Starbucks to give it (whatever kind of) free publicity. “So who all going to Starbucks to a) bajao it b) praise it c) say you prefer roadside coffee? Oh wait. You don’t have to go there to do that,” he says.

@AndrewBuncombe doesn’t believe Mumbai needed it. “Does India really need ghastly Starbucks. Why not more promotion of its own excellent coffee? http://bit.ly/TlayZA ,” is his update. But he gives the brand free publicity as well, including a link to a positive story.

Looking at the volumes of free publicity, including front page coverage in the pink papers and the chatter on social media, if you asked Starbucks employees how they felt, they would say, to borrow from communication from another Tata brand, Tata-Sky, that ’life is jingalala’.