Sign Consumption and the Meaningful World: Case Study on Brand and Marketing Strategy of Starbucks Coffee

• Main Authors: Su, Yi-Hsuan, 蘇怡萱
• Other Authors: Chang, Chia-Ming
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/w2qxtx

碩士 === 東吳大學 === EMBA高階經營碩士在職專班 === 102 === With the advent of the post- industrial era and following globalization, social structure and life style as well as consumption patterns have changed significantly. The demand of consumer for goods has transformed from the rational consumption of functional values into symbolic consumption with emotional needs. In the meanwhile, enterprise have shifted their marketing concepts from traditional strategies to brand management and development, attempting to make the brand in the minds of consumers become an irreplaceable symbolic significance. Coffee is not an indispensible necessities in daily life, while the Starbucks brand has gained a high degree of consumer identity. How Starbucks creates an atmosphere of "Starbucks coffee is a way of life to enjoy " ? How to arouse consumer desire for a unique modern lifestyle? Starbucks In addition to sells merchandise, whether also to convey a kind of knowledge and culture, and create a new wave of popular unrest? In the process of brand management, how Starbucks accumulates its brand culture to establish a irreplaceable value and brand significant? Via case study and hermeneutical phenomenological approach, the study takes the consumer society and sign consumption theory of Jean Baudrillard as the main research framework, and through the In-depth Interviews with Starbucks top-manager and consumers, to discuss how enterprise master the social environment and cultural atmosphere in a systematically symbolic operation to construct symbolic meaning of its brand so that consumers actively participate in and lead their deep desire of mind. And, by goods consuming, the consumers how to treat the brand as a symbol and link themselves into the culture and social environment to perform a unique life style. There are a few findings of this research as followings : 1.The use-value and exchange-value of goods have already been transformed to sign-value. 2.Meaningful consumer behavior is a process of systematical manipulation of symbols. 3.The core value and its reputation of enterprise lies in its brand culture.