I thought it would be fun to talk about some things that are coming soon (or perhaps or not coming at all!)
First off, I have heard lots of gossip that Starbucks will be bringing back Tribute Blend for 2012. You may recall, Starbucks first launched this coffee March 8, 2011 in stores everywhere. Part of the story behind this unique blend can be found on the official Starbucks blogs. This coffee blend was wildly popular, and sold well. I assume it was so popular that Starbucks felt like it had to come back again … And by popular demand, it’s back!
A regular reader of this blog emailed me with photos of Tribute Blend 2012. He said that he saw bags of it hanging around his local Starbucks and so he grabbed his phone and took a few photos. I am definitely excited about Tribute Blend coming back. Can’t wait to try it on the Clover, and pair some foods with it.
And thank you to the many readers, both customers and partners, who send me emails.
Secondly, I’ve heard rumor that Starbucks will be introducing a cherry pie into their pastry case lineup. I don’t have any confirmation of this or images, so this comes with the warning that this could be bad information. My interest was first piqued by this MyStarbucksIdea.com thread where a customer stated that she’s been enjoying the cherry pie at Starbucks in California. I am sure that Starbucks does quite a bit of testing of new beverages in Northern California, as I have written about the Pink Lime Frozt previously in Sacramento. And I also know that San Diego, California also is a major area of testing too. There was once a MyStarbucksIdea.com thread (about a year ago) about Vietnamese Iced Coffee being tested, and at that time I think I figured out (through twitter conversations) that this was probably tested in San Diego county.
Since reading that MyStarbucksIdea.com thread about cherry pie, I have heard loose gossip that cherry pie is coming soon too. Does anyone know more?
And I thought it would be fabulous to write about these two things together because I think cherry pie and Tribute Blend would be a great pairing! And I know that many readers are looking forward to Tribute Blend coming back.
This is an open thread. Feel free to talk about anything Starbucks-related.
EDIT on February 5, 2012:
I just realized there is a Blonde roast promotion coming up for 3 days only. Buy a pound of Blonde roast whole bean and a get a free (any size!) beverage. I definitely think that is worth mentioning in case there are fans of Blonde roast on this blog:
Edit on January 9, 2012:
A few people have contacted me either through email or twitter, and so here is what I’m hearing about the new pastry case items: There will be four new items in early March when Tribute Blend launches: Cherry Pie, Apple Pie, Brown Sugar Walnut tart, and Chocolate Hazelnut tart. All of these are classified as “petities.”
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We have no clue where our signage is for it, but I plan to chalk ink about it on the daily offerings board and make a a frame sign by the drive thru order box.
@Diele @CamSpi @MagicKat – I know I have mentioned this before on this site (and perhaps even other blogs?) but all this talk of having partners knowledgeable about promotions reminded me of this: Years ago when I worked at Eddie Bauer, we started every shift with a “take 5” – The person starting their shift actually had to meet with the store manager (or whoever was the lead person) and literally spent 5 minutes talking about promotions. Things like, ‘today we’re really pushing the buy one pair of jeans get the next half off, and don’t forget at the register you can tell customers that if they sign up for an Eddie Bauer card, they get 20% off their purchase instead of the usual 10 percent.‘
I still think it was an incredible 5 minutes. You have to staff to do this, but it can be done, and it really sharpens the whole team, because everyone is on the same page.
We didn’t get any signage about the free drink with the purchase of a bag of blonde beans. However, we’ve had it on our daily offerings board since Thursday. I personally really like the fact that it’s a free beverage and not a free TALL beverage. The customer will be able to get at least a little bit of bang for their buck this way.
We have our Roast You Love the Most tastings this weekend too. I’m looking forward to that. I need to come up with sales goals for that on Monday.
That ‘Take 5’ strategy is great, Mel! Might steal it for my store 😉
I can’t wait for more Tribute! But I’m still holding out for some development of the Vivanno line. Hoping that Evolution can really juice it up. Pun.
Melody I so totally agree with Alexander that the Eddie Bauer strategy should be used at SB with the partners. It just seems that even in the same store the partners are not on the same page and forget from store to store.
@Melody It is sooooo weird that you mentioned the “Take 5”. I just talked to my DM, Diane, who you know, about that! She used to work for Eddie Bauer, too, I think. I love that idea. A lot of info is missed from SM to Shift Supervisor to Barista, and a ‘Take Five’ would be an awesome way to fix that!
Someone else mentioned that there should be updates on social media promotions. And I would like to see that happen. I haven’t seen any official communication to stores about the 29 Star Dash, but I think its nice for our partners to be knowledgeable about those kinds of things. I’m in favor of more info about stuff like that!
I think on the portal we should receive a weekly action item for promos/offers with registered cards, so we can order accordingly or be knowledgeable to aide questions.
Does anyone know if you load $25 on a card, you get $5?? A customer asked and I told her I wasn’t sure and it was a offer that we didn’t know in store. I think I received a email but can’t find it.
@Diele
I completely agree with you! I haven’t actually seen anything about a $5 for $25 reload deal, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I didn’t get an email or a text about it from Sbux and my SM didn’t share it with me before we counted today either. I scoured the portal this afternoon looking for all current promo info (one of my peers organized the backroom and accidentally threw away all of our Blonde signage that was to go out tonight) and I didn’t see anything like that. Luckily I had an awesomely artistic barista on shift who made a bunch of signs on the fly and updated our Daily Offerings board… but man, what a nightmare. 🙂
In other news… Go Giants!
I found it! It was an online only deal.. reload $25 before 1/31 at starbucks.com/card and the week of 2/4 they would add an extra $5 to your card. I don’t know how many places it was advertised, but I found it here:
So nothing we can do at a store level, but still good to know it was out there for people asking questions.
I didn’t even know that Portal existed till reading other partner’s comments on sites like this.
I still don’t know how to access it.
As with the 29 star dash promotion, I do not remember getting an email re getting $5 on your card if you add $25 online. I really would love to know how they decide what customer gets what email.
I guess the partners this morning were tired from the super bowl because they sure looked like they wanted to be somewhere else! That Eddie Bauer talk would spark up their passion for sure.
@MagicKat (and all) – This is the first I’ve heard of the reload promo. I am sorry I missed that. I wonder where there was customer-facing info on it from Starbucks? I would have taken advantage of that. I do almost every single reload in the store, so perhaps that’s why I didn’t see it.
@CardiffBarista – I hope you get connected to the portal soon!
I have to say, this has been incredible conversation in this thread.
Melody I too do the majority of reloading in the store, but it is sort of interesting they did not send out an email to those people that do reloading in the store and say something like why not make it easier for yourself and reload online and if you do that we will sweeten the deal by putting $5 on your card as a gift from us. I certainly would consider doing that for sure. Re the conversation in this thread. I think it is so great because of you and because of the wonderful and involved people that read your blog.
I never reload online so I was shocked to get the email, but I order online quite a bit. Strange how they single customers out and isolate others.
@Melody — I just looked and I had archived the email with the $5 promo, I have forwarded it to you.
Something significant in the offer is that you had to setup an “auto-reload” by 1/31/12 in order to get the offer. I bet many people missed that and may be surprised when they do not get a $5 bonus or they missed that they were signing up for auto-reload and will now get another surprise.
For anyone who is interested: I have heard an anonymous tip that apple and cherry pie launch on March 6, 2012, same day as the Tribute Blend WB, which will be offered again as Via too. There is supposedly going to be a hazelnut chocolate tart, and a brown sugar walnut tart. All of these (the pies, and the tarts) are classified as “petites.”
The reload promo here is a VISA promotion. It sounds like there’s a different promo in the US? From my understanding if you load $25 on your card online VISA will kick in an extra $5. But, as I say, maybe this is different than the promotion you guys have? I have a customer who tried it out and is watching for the extra $5. For some reason she doesn’t seem to think it’s going to show up.
I did see an email about it from MSI, but it was tucked in a corner and not very noticeable. The message didn’t look like it was customized as it didn’t have any special offers attached to it, so I assumed all MSI members got it.
Melody,
This morning I didn’t feel well so I missed my Monday Morning Starbucks with my buddies. And now that I need to know if my local Starbucks has cherry pie, I may have to run down there tomorrow morning. I’ll let you know if my Norcal SB has it.
~Allie
32nd and Lincoln will be the first Clover store in Arizona. I can not wait! It will be over an hour drive just to try.
There were actually two different promos – one for $5 bonus when you reload with $25 before the end of January and one where you got the $5 bonus when you set up auto-reload and it hits during February. The FatWallet thread on this shows both emails. http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/expired-deals/1163497/
Saw Tribute Blend on shelf today. One of the partners came over this morning and gave my husband and I a valentines card for a buy one get one free hot chocolate or caffe mocha by Feb 14. Has anyone else received one? It is a thank you valentines for being a loyal customer. I did not see her giving it to every customer that walked in.
@purple1 — at my regular Starbucks one of the Baristas came over to my table and gave me the Valentine card. What was really nice was the sincere way she said that she and the others really appreciated not just my business but how nice I was to them.
Cecile of MSI also sent me one with a simple note.
Here Tribute is in the backroom, not to be seen until March.
They have been brewing Casi Cielo instead of Pike. It is interesting that the Pike drinkers are really liking the Casi.
I was given one of the valentines yesterday.
Dad Cooks that was very nice that the partners told you how much they appreciated you as a customer. The partner at my local SB was nice for sure to give it to us but she handed to us very quickly and ran off.
purple, i am on my kindle sorry sloppy.I am surprised that your Starbucks has Tribute Blend on the shelf. I really don’t think stores are supposed to put it out, and I thought this store in Wisconsin (where the pics. here are from) is a fluke. My God I HATE auto correct.
I find it strange as we haven’t received any Tribute blend or a mail pack with the barista needs to know or signage to display it for purchase.
@Diele
We just got our first box of Tribute, so I’m in the process of training all of my baristas to be able to speak to what Tribute is, the flavor profile, and offer some kind of acceptable pairing when approached by our DM or a customer. Hopefully, you will get yours soon so you can mark some out for samples and training. 🙂
re: the Valentine mocha cards…… I also recvd one from Cecile and apparently the stores all have these…but, I went to 3 different stores today, they all had them but hadn’t taken the time to do anything with them. I told them they’re dated…..and recvd a couple more. They were all very nice about it but so far, there’s no big deal and they (partners) are mostly unaware of what they have. (and they are dated 2/6-2/14 and after 2P)
Once again, in some cases, not so much comunication to the partners, obviously.
I’ve had the Casi C. for a couple days now (Monday) and I actually am finding it less bold than I remember it from last yr. am needing to use more of it in the mornings to get the flavor…..
ps: also a coupon via email today for a $1.00 petite w/ any handcrafred beverage….goes thru March sometime….did not notice a start date.
Two different comments since this is an open thread.- Said to the SM today saw that Tribute Blend was on the shelf and he said yes they sent it to us early but we are not brewing it until March. Two- I wish there were a way to get some partners to be more friendly and not seem like such robots in their interactions!
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