03.17.12
Cult-like devotion…
Today’s dose of upper class shoeshine is a list of “7 companies with cult followings.”
Apple, no surprise, is number 1.
With exception of Harley-Davidson, which still makes motorcycles in the US — that always being the entire point of its attraction even when bikes were known as shit when I was you, they all get their cult consumer audiences by making stuff overseas. Or by wiping their feet on employees.
Starbucks is number 2 on this list. On the firm:
With Starbucks, this means that even if you personally think $5 coffee is a joke, you should notice why so many pay that premium:
Consumers carry Starbucks coffee as a badge brand. “People look at you differently if you’re carrying a Starbucks cup than if you walk into a meeting with the Dunkin’ Donuts cup,” says Turkle, the MIT professor and psychologist.And Starbucks works hard to make customers feel like they’re part of something bigger. You’re joining a community centered on comfortable lounge areas and free Wi-Fi, part of a company strategy to create a “third space” for people to spend time besides home and work, says Maleeny, of Ogilvy & Mather.
Starbucks has cultivated a cult-like loyalty that continues to pay off for shareholders.
You can’t make a living working at Starbucks unless you’re living with someone else, or else holding down a job elsewhere, too.
DD knows. There are lots of Starbucks in Pasadena. You can move back in with your parents if you work at Starbucks. Which, as a matter of fact, some of their workers do here because, by the hour and after taxes, they don’t make so much more than that 5 buck cup of Joe for snobs.
What the American 1 percent and their nationwide shoeshiner support staff really love — in a cult-like way — is labor that’s the equivalent of indentured servitude.