Starbucks Card Mobile: Pay with your Phone!

Every time I’m in the grocery store, or any other store for that matter, I hear people complaining about how many cards they have to carry around in their wallets and about how many rewards programs they have to join. The Starbucks card is a little different because you can charge it up and pay for your coffee with it (not just use it to get a normal price on an overpriced box of cookies at the market), but it is still one more thing that you need to carry around with you. But Starbucks is going mobile with their cards and if you have a smart phone, you can download an app to access your card digitally. The app will tell you your balance and, when you press the button to pay, a barcode will appear that the barista can scan. Your bill will be deducted from your balance and you won’t need to fish around in your purse or wallet for yet another card (because we all know that we keep our cellphones handier than anything else, for the most part).

I still like my Starbucks card (which is from 2001!) a lot, but I’ve used this type of system for airplane boarding passes and have to admit that it’s pretty convenient, so I just might end up downloading the app myself. It is currently available for iPhone and Blackberry, with an Anroid app coming soon.

Starbucks rolls out “Trente” size

Starbucks is constantly testing new products and marketing ideas for their stores, running them in just a few test markets around the country at any given time to gauge consumer reactions. They’re rolling out one of these new ideas nationwide in the next few months: the Trente size. This new drink size is a whopping 31-ounces! To put this in perspective, the Vente size currently runs 20 ounces for hot drinks and 24 ounces for cold drinks. Moving up to 31-ounces is quite a big step! Other coffee shops that offer such large sizes tend to promote them for iced tea and similar drinks, rather than hot beverages, because it’s pretty difficult to drink a hot drink of that size and actually have it remain hot.

The new drink size will be rolled out Tuesday in 14 states: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, Nevada and Arizona.California residents will be able to buy them beginning Feb. 1 and the nationwide rollout should be complete by May 3.

Starbucks rebrands, drops coffee from name

The Starbucks logo is so familiar to even the most casual coffee drinker that we could draw it in our sleep. It’s iconic. The chain’s logo has just undergone a redesign for the first time in nearly two decades and that icon is undergoing some changes, dropping the words “Starbucks Coffee” in favor of something a little more graphic. In fact, the whole frame of the Starbucks siren is gone, leaving only the green mermaid – sans text – behind. Reuters reports that this change is not going over well with consumers who are fans of the brand’s logo, and it isn’t well-received by the branding consultants that they contacted for opinions. Disassociating the name of Starbucks from the logo may give the company room to brand more non-coffee items, but coffee is where the heart of the company is and that might be a turnoff to many.

That said, it’s not changing the coffee or the Starbucks on the corner any time soon. But I might head out to pick up a new mug bearing the classic logo for old times sake because, although I wouldn’t say I had strong feelings on the matter, I have to say that I like the old logo a whole lot better than the new one.

Free coffee for drivers on NYS Thruway on New Year’s Eve

I’ve been hearing lots of public service announcements about the dangers of drowsy driving lately, in addition to those about drunk driving and “buzzed” driving.When you’re drowsy, your reaction times are slow and you’ll find your mind wandering to things besides the road you’re driving on. This is especially dangerous on a monotonous-looking highway on a night when there are an unusually high number of drivers out, like New Year’s Eve. In an effort to help people be safer on the roads, there will be free coffee available at all 27 of the Travel Plazas on the NYS Thruway on New Year’s Eve. It’s a good excuse to stop your car for a moment, stretch your legs and perk up with a bit of caffeine. The drinks will be available from 11 p.m. Friday to 7 a.m. Saturday, so if you’ll be driving that road – make a pit stop. I’m never one to argue with free coffee and if the program helps keep people safer on the road, so much the better!

Cup-To-Cup: A recycling option for coffee cups

Paper cups at coffee shops are designed for on-the-go convenience. You pick them up, take them with you and then dispose of them at your convenience later. Most are trashed, not recycled. Using a reusable cup – either ceramic or plastic – is the solution for many consumers concerned about waste but wanting to keep the convenience of to-go cups. International Paper has tested the viability of another option: cup-to-cup recycling. This is a process that transforms previously used paper coffee cups into new, complete food safe cups with no new paper waste. It’s a great idea, but there is one big caveat and that is that consumers have to participate by recycling their cups in the first place. To make this plan really workable, a large volume of coffee cups would have to make it into the paper plants to be pulped, treated (not all recycled paper products need to be made completely food safe, so there is some additional processing) and reformed into new cups.

A continued push for consumers to use reusable cups is probably the best option for now, but it’s interesting to see what might lie in the future for coffee cups, and what new processes are being developed to satisfy the seemingly growing desire of consumers to reduce their eco-footprints.