Wondering if she could possibly finish her paper work that day, she bumps into her friends in the campus. Soon she finds herself heading to her favorite coffee shop around there, which is Tom N Toms, with her friends chatting delightedly. Thanks to her friends, she forgets the pressure of her work for a while sitting on the fancy sofa with coffee shake and sometimes also with sweet waffle. Later that day after sunset, she is going back to the school library with a cup of vanilla coffee in her hand, which she got from the Hollys Coffee located inside the campus. She feels like studying at home tonight so that she could do her paper work with her laptop drinking instant coffee as much as she wants. In this case, she stays up night until 1 am with a couple of instant coffees. The same will be repeated the next day and again.
This is the story of most of the university students in Korea, especially of girls including myself. As a matter of fact, a lot of people are addicted to coffee somehow. However, I wonder if they could have become serious coffee lovers without systematic support with the aggressive coffee marketing in Korea. Actually, I am not a coffee-holic. I even get dizzy or feel sick after drinking the whole cup of coffee. But still, the place I often head to with my friends is the coffee shop. Why is it? Why do I spend money which I do not think it is reasonable? Why are the people killing their times in a coffee shop? How could the coffee shops be crowed all day long even there are a bunch of shops? I thought this quite interesting and believing that there are some reasons definitely, I am willing to study about coffee chains that are only in Korea.
People in Korea used to spend immeasurable amount of money on instant coffee which is available at discount stores, conveniences stores, and even online. However, obviously, the trend in drinking coffee has been enormously changed as people are looking for more delicate flavor and moderate life style. For example, Starbucks, which started its business in South Korea in 1999, could succeed earlier by justifying its high price with the luxurious image and taste. As it turned out that specialty coffee industry is very profitable market, more companies and individuals joined the business and the competition is getting keen. The coffee industry of South Korea has developed so much rapidly over the past decade. I think they were able to success because they convinced people that coffee could be a luxury product. People are willing to pay 5 dollars for a cup of coffee as long as they can brag they're drinking a luxury coffee. To infuse this kind of conception, the related marketing has played important role especially targeting young generation. At present, there are about 10 popular coffee franchises in Korea and among them seven are domestic brands. Indeed, cafes have emerged as the new office of choice for many small start-ups.
In 1990's, it was usual for middle-aged gentle men to be featured in the TV commercials of coffee products. That's because, at that time, coffee was considered directly as instant coffee that people used to enjoy at home. However, nowadays, coffee is not just one of drinking beverage or something; Drinking coffee means that you're taking your own time to be relaxed and that, more importantly, it is the way to express yourself. You can experience the totally different feeling even through the slight difference in coffee flavor. In other words, by drinking coffee, you experience the cultural code such as romance, relaxation, peace, friends, luxury, or trend. People visit the coffee shops desiring to purchase more than just a cup of coffee. Recently, Caffebenne, one of the popular coffee franchises in Korea, started to role as a cultural space broadcasting a music program. Consumers can send a song request by text messages or internet and then they get to hear that song while drinking coffee. Likewise, coffee shop is not a place where just sells coffees anymore.
Here are two articles related to the popularity of coffee shops in Korea.
The first article shows the competitive edge of several coffee shops which includes marketing, and the second article is about creating value from consumer’s experiences. Actually it is not only limited to coffee, but has a lot to do with it.
Below are the marks of five domestic coffee shops that are popular in Korea.
Hi Sally - I definitely commented previously on your blog, but I must not have completed the word verification before leaving the blog page. I am very sorry about that! I'll try to remember my comments.
답글삭제I like this topic of exploring the experiences associated with coffee shops. The one thing I really can not tell from your blog are the exact points within that topic that you are interested in covering. Are you going to break down the experience using a framework such as the one we reviewed in class? Are you going to compare the experiences across the major coffee shop brands? There may also be a few other ways to cover this, but I"m not sure what you are considering. You did a nice job introducing the idea of the topic. I am just unable to provide further feedback until I see what else you are considering.