Why Starbucks serves Café Crème in Switzerland

Around the world, Starbucks stands for cappuccino, latte, americano and frappuccino. But people ordering coffee in Switzerland often expect something else. Here the Café Crème is part of the coffee culture – and so part of everyday life for consumers.

Starbucks understood that too. When it launched here in 2001, the Swiss coffee was taken into the menu as a matter of course. And not only that: cups were made specially in the right size, so that local consumers would also find the coffee they had always known.

At first glance that may look like a small product decision. Strategically, though, it is an important principle: global brands need to localize. A brand can have the same identity, the same values and a consistent appearance worldwide. But it does not have to offer exactly the same thing everywhere.

Because consumers do not just buy a brand. They want the brand to fit their life, their habits and their culture. That is precisely where the challenge of international expansion lies: how much has to be standardised globally – and where does a brand have to adapt locally?

The Café Crème at Starbucks is therefore more than an additional coffee option. It shows that successful globalisation does not mean doing the same thing everywhere.

Global consistency creates recognition. Local relevance creates connection.

And sometimes that local relevance begins with a very simple question: “How do people here actually drink their coffee?”.

At vmh partners we ask those questions as a matter of course. We want to understand how markets work, what moves consumers, how local relevance can be achieved. And as so often, it starts with a good coffee – a thoroughly local one.