Time for Action!

Good morning... What can I get for you?

How about a little action. There's a tendency to call out only the faults of a successful business when they've hit the proverbial shitter... or at least a low point. And yes... I've done my fair share of that. Lots of criticism, but no solutions for our beloved Starbucks. Most of what I do is poke some fun... call out the obvious... and just download crap from my head. You'd be surprised how much it can collect after a few years of living in the stores. So... There's just too many complicated ideas for lifting Starbucks stock off the ground...

• Change the leadership
• Get rid of Jim...
  
• Focus on the coffee
• Stop with the clutter
• Quit handing out such big executive bonuses in hard times
• Raise the pay of store partners...

And the list goes on... Well... Pat Nerr has simpler approach. The Starbucks Action Figure line. If you're truly going to target the next generation of coffee addicts, you need to take a more subtle approach. That's where the action figure comes in. I'm serious here... Look at what Lucas has done to the Star Wars brand. Sure, he had all of those blockbuster movies and all... but I think he had something there with the action figure... They span generations.

So let's look at the possibilities. You have all of your major roles with which to create the lineup. Your leaders, your "yes men" second in command, your heroes, your villains... even the generic character of barista to create your clone army figures from. So let's get down to specifics...

• The Sith: Howie figure, Jimbo figure
• The Clone Army: The barista figure, SM figure and the ASM figure (SS figure maybe)
• The Yoda-like character: Howard Behar figure
• The young apprentice: Obi-Jim Alling figure and his padawan Greg Johnson
• Lone female figure: Launi Skinner
  
• Chewbacca-like figure: Kenny G
• The droids: Verismo 701, Magistrale and LaMarzocco (the beat-up old droid)
• Sith council: The board
• Your vehicles: The Brew Van, Drive-Thru SUV (complete with customer action figure) and the Frappuccino Stationary bike.

So, you can see... I've thought this through. There's something to it... I'm not kidding. People would pay large sums for their C9+ condition Starbucks Action figures... and I didn't even touch on some of the Lego spin offs (think Lego Marzocco).

Alright... enjoy that conference call today at 2pm (pst)... And when they start pumping some successful product ideas... you think of this one.

Pat Nerr...