THE global coffee behemoth Starbucks has 24,000 locations worldwide in 70 countries.
Customers can buy grande frappuccinos from Brunei to Brazil to Dubai, as well as in nearly two dozen European countries. But one locale has long been missing from its massive footprint: Italy, the home of the espresso bar.
That will change in 2017 when Starbucks opens its first location in Milan, followed by others across Italy, a move it announced late Sunday.
Expansions into new countries by global corporations are rarely headline news, but for Starbucks, this occasion is different.
For one, the company will sell its coffee in a place perhaps more associated with coffee aficionados than anywhere in the world - representing not only a big opportunity to try to prove itself but also a big risk.
"If the country that practically invented cafe culture rejected Starbucks, that would be an enormous black eye," said Laura Ries, a brand consultant based in Atlanta.
In addition, the move gives the company the chance to reinforce the narrative it has long told about Starbucks's brand: that it was hatched in Italy by chief executive Howard Schultz more than 30 years ago.
READ: Starbucks to face its ultimate test with opening of first store in Italy
While that's a good opportunity for any company, it's particularly critical for Starbucks, which has long used the story to turn a cheap commodity into a higher-end customer "experience" for which people are willing to shell out extra.
"What Howard figured out a long time ago is that the 'what' story doesn't matter," said David Srere, the co-chief executive of the brand strategy firm Siegel+Gale. "It's the 'so what' story that matters."
The company emphasized both of those points in its announcement. The headline of its news release said the company was entering Italy "with humility and respect" for the country.
Schultz said he plans to develop a coffee blend specifically for the Italian market and add a bar for customers to stand at, as is custom in Italian coffeehouses.
The company will also be going local with a partner, working with Percassi - which Srere noted is "hugely respected in Italy" - as the licensee to operate its stores.
Branding experts said the humble and local approach was the right one.
"You've got to go and kiss the ring here - you don't mess around with Italy and coffee," Ries said.
Companies need "to be authentic, and to not just be the big American brand with guns blazing, coming in to take over the town."
The company used the news to share a lengthy history of Italy's influence on Starbucks's origins, complete with photos of Schultz standing in front of the Duomo, Milan's cathedral, today and a grainy image of a much younger, dark-haired Schultz in Italy in 1983.
The story is one of the more famous origin tales in Corporate America. In the early 1980s, Schultz was running sales for a high-end Swedish housewares company and noticed that a small coffee chain in the Pacific Northwest was buying a lot of its drip coffee makers.
He visited the Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spice Company, was taken with the coffee's quality - back then it was sold only as whole beans - and persuaded the small operation to let him join as its marketing director.
In that role, he went to Italy for a trade show, so goes the corporate lore, and fell in love with Italy's cafe culture. He devotes nearly a whole chapter to it in his first book, "Pour Your Heart into It," in which he gushes with an almost religious fervor about the "strong sensual flavor" of the espresso he drank there and the "great theater" of the country's coffeehouses.
"I felt the unexpressed demand for romance and community," he wrote. "The Italians had turned the drinking of coffee into a symphony, and it felt right. Starbucks was playing in the same hall, but we were playing without a string section."
Back home, he tried to persuade his partners at Starbucks to start an espresso bar. They let him launch a trial in a new location, but they considered it a distraction. In time, he went back to Italy.
This time when he returned, he left Starbucks and started a coffee business in Seattle he called Il Giornale, after a Milan newspaper. His former partners invested in that start-up - but Schultz ultimately ended up acquiring Starbucks from them, and he built the company we know today.
While it may sound like little more than corporate folklore, Srere says re-upping the story is also smart marketing, particularly for an American company that's taking the risk of trying to sell espresso to Italians.
"He's basically telling a narrative that Starbucks is coming home again," Srere said. "When you expand into a place where you've never been before, it's like one strike and you're out."
The Washington Post
Tue Mar 01 2016
Starbucks's brand was hatched in Italy by chief executive Howard Schultz (pic) more than 30 years ago. - AFPRelax Photo
Sektor pendidikan terima RM64.1 bilion, tertinggi dalam sejarah
Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim memberitahu Kementerian Pendidikan diberi peruntukan RM64.1 bilion peruntukan tertinggi dalam sejarah.
Kerajaan meluluskan Forest City sebagai Pulau Bebas Cukai - PM
Skim Pejabat Keluarga Tunggal telah diluncurkan untuk Zon Kewangan Khas Forest City bagi menggalakkan pengurusan dana Keluarga, kata PM Anwar Ibrahim
Belanjawan 2025: Ada ibu bapa warga emas? Ini manfaat membabitkan mereka
Belanjawan 2025 menaikkan bantuan bulanan untuk warga emas serta memperluaskan pelepasan cukai berkaitan penjagaan kesihatan dan sukan.
Peruntukan RM6.7 bilion pacu pembangunan Sabah
Cadangan peruntuk RM6.7 bilion untuk Sabah 2025 memadai untuk meneruskan projek pembangunan pada tahun akhgir Rancangan Malaysia Ke-12 (RMK12).
Perkhidmatan komuniti bergerak di Sabah, Sarawak diperluas
Tambahnya Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN) bergerak ditambah empat lagi menjadikan 12 buah terutamanya untuk Sabah dan Sarawak bagi memudahkan penyaluran bantuan kerajaan.
Usaha memperkasa pembangunan ekonomi masyarakat luar bandar
Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim berkata setiap pedesaan, miskin bandar, di kampung, pedalaman dan rumah panjang diberi peruntukan antara RM50,000 hingga RM100,000
Pembangunan fasiliti di Sabah, Sarawak terus jadi fokus kerajaan
Ini apabila sejumlah RM 253 juta diperuntukkan untuk projek pembesaran Lapangan Terbang Tawau dan Lapangan Terbang Miri. Selain itu, Kerajaan Persekutuan dan Sarawak bekerjasama membangunkan Pusat Kanser Sarawak yang dianggarkan 1 bilion ringgit.
Pemberian Khas Sabah, Sarawak dicadang dinaikan RM600 juta
Kerajaan bercadang menaikkan kadar Pemberian Khas Sarawak dan Sabah sekali ganda kepada RM600 juta.
Atur kemasukan warga asing, SPRM tahan dua pegawai penguat kuasa dan ejen
Mereka dipercayai terlibat mengatur kemasukan warga asing menerusi laluan kaunter khas di Lapangan Terbang Antarabangsa Pulau Pinang (LTAPP).
Belanjawan 2025: Gred Turus tidak ambil kenaikan gaji tujuh peratus
Barisan Pengurusan Tertinggi penjawat awam Gred Utama iaitu Turus bersetuju untuk tidak menerima lagi kenaikan gaji sebanyak tujuh peratus dalam SSPA yang bermula 1 Disember depan.