Starbucks has teamed up with Foursquare for testing its customer rewards program.

By September, Seattle’s Best coffee (owned by Starbucks) will be served at 7,250 Burger King restaurants in the US.

With profits tumbling around the world, McDonald’s has begun to change the way that it does business.

Starbucks is testing a new logo and store design in London.

Starbucks has introduced two new iPhone applications, one of which will allow customers to order and pay for their coffee right from their phone.

Over the past year we’ve noticed experimentation in Starbucks’ marketing, a reflection of an identity crisis in the industry as “mass-market powerhouses” McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts use the recession to rise from below. On the opposite front gourmet coffee startups are beginning to present the premium quality Starbucks once used as its primary selling point.

Dropping a total of $2.2 million dollars, South Korea’s Hyundai Card has bought out all media space in the newly opened subway station just outside their building.

This is an extract from the draft John Grant’s new book Co-opportunity, contracted for publication with John Wiley & Sons Limited, January 2010. This extract section 3 of the book – Information and Ethical Consumerism.

As part of a series of sophisticated concept shops in Japan, the Kamakura Starbucks is designed to resemble a wooden Japanese-style home.

PSFK got in touch with Liz Muller who is Director of Global Concept Design and interviewed her on the phone about the 15th Avenue E concept store they had rolled out in Seattle, the reasons behind it and the company’s plans for the future.

Last Friday, the Seattle based corporation opened their first ’stealth store’ called 15th Avenue E Coffee and Tea – a cafe “inspired by Starbucks”. Our PSFK spy got herself down to the store opening and snapped some of these photos.

Starbucks’ new advertising campaign is perhaps not particularly noteworthy to many of us, given that there are tens of brands that try to use social media to prop their brand up everyday – they are putting up posters in six major US cities and challenging users to be the first to find and post pictures on Twitter. What is interesting however, is the motivation behind the campaign, as explained by Chris Bruzzo, Starbucks’ Vice President of brand, content and online. From the New York Times:

Each year, people race to post the first photos of Starbucks shops decorated in red for [...]

Last Wednesday was National Beverage Day, a little-known holiday that inspired us to examine the new McCafé coffee line, from McDonalds.
Perhaps an unlikely chain vying for a piece of the caffeinated pie, but with this week’s launch, McDonald’s introduced an expanded McCafé coffee line, featuring cappuccinos, mochas and lattes. The specialty offerings are available at 11,000 locations (out of 14,000) nationwide. And taking a page from the coffeehouse playbook, McDonald’s customers can customize any drink with flavored syrups, steamed milk or whipped cream.
While Starbucks battles the stigma of the recession-unfriendly “4 dollar coffee,” a coffee run at McDonald’s will set [...]

Hey – it’s not all doom and gloom. Especially if you’re a brand trying to do good: the Financial Times report that retail sales of Fairtrade products, led by bananas and coffee, have risen to a record high of £700m up 47 per cent in 2008 on a year earlier. Apparently, much of this has been driven by larger brands like Starbucks and J Sainsbury who have “boosted” their commitment to Fairtrade products and ethical trading.
Financial Times