Question

When Starbucks entered the market in China, it found that coffee drinking was much less popular than the consumption of tea. Suppose that Starbucks decided to develop an advertising campaign that tried to address the fact that China has been a tea-drinking country for centuries. Each ad in the campaign will begin with the opening concept: “We know that you have enjoyed tea-drinking, but you will love our coffee,” and then move into aspects of the coffee and the stores that are being promoted.

This illustrates an advertising technique called counterarguing. Define what it is and please explain how Starbucks is using it to communicate.

Answer 1

The concept of counter arguing is to object a pre existing concept and try to establish the ideas and views that is to be established. It is generally used in markets where there is already an established product which a different organization is trying to replace. In this case Starbucks is trying to counterargue the use of team by the individuals of China and this is possible by focusing and promoting the strengths of Coffee and its advantage over consumption of tea.

The opening concept of each and every advertisement will be “We know that you have enjoyed tea-drinking, but you will love our coffee,” and then the advantages coffee provides and possess over team needs to be communicated and conveyed to the people and it should be attractive so that the consumers shift their preference to Coffee over tea. It is difficult and may take time but initially it needs to have some lead which will penetrate the market gradually.