Blog Posts for Bryant Simon

Spoof?

Bryant Simon — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:53:46 -0800

Another Wednesday, another image. This is obviously a spoof, but it is really that far off?

Comet -- Ann Arbor

Bryant Simon — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:15:31 -0800

I was in Ann Arbor last week talking about my book and my good friend, Josh Cole, took me to Comet -- a bare bones, but still attractive, exquiste third wave coffee shop. This is really a post-Starbucks store, where the performance is all about the coffee, not faux community or saving the planet. (They do sell Ritual coffee with a hammer and sickle on the label.) You can smell the coffee ...

Offending Cup

Bryant Simon — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:12:16 -0800

Picture Day again. This week the picture features one of the Starbucks cups with the quotes. Starbucks introduced these cups to, in the company's words, support "good, healthy discussion.” To add to that conversation, novelist Armistead Maupin wrote on his cup, "My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it for so long, I surrendered my youth --- he continues -- to the ...

Globalized Stealth

Bryant Simon — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:42:26 -0800

In looks like Starbucks' campaign to hide its logo -- or at least cover it up a bit -- is going global. (On the campaign in the US, see my blog in Washington Post, http://voices.washingtonpost.com/shortstack/2009/10/starbucks_--_hiding_...). But now, according to an article in the London Times, the company will open today the first of the first of 100 “individualised” ...

Schools and Via

Bryant Simon — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:07:27 -0800

A friend of mine shared this email with me. As she said, homeroom teachers are now shilling for Starbucks. Starbucks and Highland Park Elementary have a Partnering Program and a wonderful opportunity for Highland Park to earn easy cash through November 16, 2009! Come into our neighborhood, Northland Starbucks and purchase a 12pk of VIA Ready Brew (Starbucks new amazing instant coffee!) ...

Starbucks in the Forbidden City

Bryant Simon — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:00:38 -0800

Today's picture is a shot of the store Starbucks opened in the Forbidden City in China about ten years ago. Almost as soon as the store opened in created buzz -- especially in the international press -- and conflict. In 2003, Singapore’s Chua Chin Hon wrote, “I’m no anti-globalization protestor, nor am I about to become one.” But then Starbucks opened that Forbidden City outlet and ...

Retail Therapy

Bryant Simon — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:29:10 -0700

Retail therapy – picking up a venti mocha frappuccino to make you feel better and ward off bad feelings – is one of the ways of buying I talk about a lot about in my book, Everything but the Coffee. In yesterday’s edition of the Daily Pennsylvanian, Arielle Kane, discusses this impulse as well. Talking about a trip to Anthropologic, she writes, “I love how it ...

Last Exit Starbucks

Bryant Simon — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:25:46 -0700

Starting today and then every Wednesday for the next few months, I am going to post a Starbucks image -- something that speaks to the brand's appeal and the company's marketing of everyday desires. Today's image is from JFK Airport. What can I say? Terminal Two is a 100 or so long, long yards away. But we do need to always plan, I suppose, when and where we can get our next jolt of ...

Let's Call it CONSIPICOUS CONSCIENTIOUS CONUSMPTION

Bryant Simon — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:00:53 -0700

Before October of last year, trendspotters wrote repeatedly about affulenza and the luxurification of everything from hotels to bath towels to coffee. Brands like Starbucks marketed their products, in turn, as affordable luxuries and everyday extravagances. But when Lehman Brothers imploded and the federal government bailed out AIG, trendspotters thought they detected a ...

Via Taste Test

Bryant Simon — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:25:12 -0700

Today is the official, official North American launch date for my book, Everything but the Coffee, although it has been out for some time already. To mark the date, though really to get some of the cobwebs out of my head from the second to last ever Springsteen show at the Spectrum (Bruce fans here is the impressive set list, http://www.backstreets.com/news.html), I decided to try the ...