Starbucks called on Heckler Associates to commemorate their 25th Anniversary in 1996. The siren call of coffee had become strong across the country, so to honor this cultural phenomenon, we created artwork that freed the mermaid from her logo circle and placed her in all of her glory on the front of the Anniversary Blend coffee bean bag.
Our designer's beautiful and elegant original illustration was so romantic and evocative it actually brought tears to the eyes of one Starbucks marketing manager. Now, the lovely mermaid reclaims her place on the coffee bag packaging during the Starbucks anniversary promotion each fall.
We also created a commemorative brass plaque, a glass art piece to hang in the window in the Pike Place Market store. This project required the utmost diplomacy and engineering skill to win the approval of the Pike Place Market Foundation, which has extremely strict rules about any structural changes to stores in the market. But after several presentations before their board, a promise that any mounting fixture for the brass plaque would not touch the floor, and a similar promise that the piece hanging in the window could be mounted so as not to touch the window, we won approval to proceed. You can see both pieces there today. Starbucks' "first" store is part of many tourists' path through the market; little do they know that the original store was on the corner of Pike Place and Virginia in a building that has since been torn down.
Much work was done on brand extensions into new product categories to enhance the Starbucks Coffee customer experience. With sales coming from beverages, pre-packaged coffee in their stores and on grocery shelves, and an explosion of other retail products they developed, the emphasis on the highest-quality coffee beans seemed to be an afterthought. To refocus on its core competency and main brand differential, Starbucks created a limited edition series of the finest whole-bean varietal coffees. The story of the sourcing, growing and harvesting of these rare Starbucks coffees was woven into a special packaging system of coffee bags, story labels and gift boxes that Heckler Associates designed.
All of these new product introductions and seasonal promotions required strong merchandising to get them noticed in the midst of a busy store with art on every wall. We created posters, shelf-talkers and other merchandising tools that added a seasonal and promotional voice that kept shopping at Starbucks fun, fresh and relevant throughout the year.
Heckler Associates continues to work with Starbucks on key product introductions and branding initiatives. We named Tiazzi fruit juice and tea beverages introduced in 1998, the new restaurant and evening coffee house test concept Circadia, and the new espresso machine Mastrena, introduced in 2008.
