ASIA-PACIFIC – SHANGHAI, CHINA, MAY 29, 2012: Starbucks China has awarded JWT Shanghai its digital strategy and social media engagement business in a 2-year contract which started May 1.
The Seattle-based coffee company has over 570 outlets in China, recently announced plans to accelerate the store openings in China to 1,500 by the end of 2015. That would make China the company’s second biggest market worldwide.
To help reach that goal, Starbucks & JWT have signed a two-year contract, which kicked in on May 1. Starbucks China does very little paid advertising, and instead focuses on social media engagement as a key business driver.
“We went through an extensive review of agencies and selected JWT because we feel JWT has the depth of expertise in the digital space that Starbucks is looking for. They presented thoughtful recommendations on how continue to build the Starbucks brand digitally and recommended creative applications of new and existing digital tactics,” said Starbucks China’s chief marketing officer, Marie Han Silloway.
The agency is tasked to manage Starbucks brand pages across social media networks Sina Weibo, Kaixin and Renren. In addition, JWT will utilize the latest digital technology to keep Starbucks top of mind even when consumers are not in the store. Digital engagement via new mobile and online platforms, like Weibo, will build Starbuck’s fan community, drive participation in product promotions, and enhance the overall Starbucks customer experience by providing customers with surprising new ways to interact with the brand.
"Starbucks has consistently been an early adopter of new digital platforms, such as Facebook, Foursquare & Instagram. We will apply this same pioneering approach to the Chinese digital media landscape, and look forward to sharing many exciting engagement programs in the coming months," says Eugene Chew, director of digital strategy for JWT Shanghai.
