The (anticipated) demise of Chantico

We’ve written elsewhere of our skepticism of Starbucks decision to launch Chantico, their first foray into indulgent chocolate beverages. So we weren’t surprised to learn of their recent decision to pull the product after a year of quiet sales and little fanfare.

So what is to be learned from this uncharacteristic mis-step?

If you believe the PR machine, Chantico failed because “It was not adaptable enough to customers’ (unique) tastes and desire for customtization.” The idea being that Chantico failed because it was offered in only a single size and gave customers little options to customize to their content. As Starbucks spokesman Alan Hilowitz noted:

“It (Chantico) was something that customers did like, but they wanted to be able to do something else with it…We wanted to go back and give customers what they are looking for.”

While we are not naïve enough to believe that insiders are in lock-step with the PR machinery, we can’t help but to wonder if the powers that be have really grasped the more fundamental lesson here. Chantico failed because (a) there was no cultural model for chocolate drinking and (b) Starbucks had no claim to expertise in chocolate.

The beauty of the original Starbucks proposition was that they leveraged a perceived expertise in coffee atop a practice that was already firmly entrenched in US culture (i.e. coffee drinking). True, coffee-drinking practices in the 70’s and 80’s differed remarkably from what we see today, but there was still a cultural model atop which Starbucks was able to activate their “knowledge-driven” experience. In fact, for better or worse, many of the differences we see in the contemporary cultural consumption of coffee (e.g. meeting for coffee after school or work) can be at least partially attributed to Starbucks ability to shape that developing culture. While this truth may ruffle the feathers of critical theorists and anti-corporate types, it should not be overlooked. 

 

By comparison, the closest one can come to a cultural model for chocolate drinking comes in the way of hot chocolate, which is really more of a special-occasion children’s beverage relegated to cold-winter moments. Strangely, Starbucks sought to consistently distance Chantico from this association, claiming in marketing collaterals that this was a “special chocolate dessert beverage named after the Aztec goddess of hearth and fire.” Finally, it was never clear what kind of expertise Starbucks was bringing to this nearly non-existent practice. Short of offering a tub of 25 cent chocolate treats near the register or encouraging holiday shoppers to indulge on a $3.00 box of chocolate covered espresso beans, Starbucks has never had much of anything to do with chocolate.

Bottom line, if you head to the market without an obvious connection to local (i.e. cultural) consumption practices, and if you offer no apparent expertise or credibility, there is a good chance that the reception will be chilly, at best—ironically, the best time for a hot chocolate.

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