JWT Shanghai wins Starbucks digital business

Starbucks China has awarded JWT Shanghai its digital strategy and social media engagement business, which underpins the Seattle-based coffee company’s marketing strategy for this critical growth market.

Starbucks has over 570 outlets in China and recently announced plans to accelerate store openings 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. Starbucks China does very little paid advertising, and instead focuses on social media engagement as a key business driver.

“JWT’s knowledge of the China digital media landscape, and proven expertise in creating content and managing social media for other major clients, including Friso, Pizza Hut and Levi’s Denizen, played a big role in the selection process”, said Starbucks China’s Chief Marketing Officer, Marie Han Silloway (pictured).

“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 Silloway. “We felt the team really understood what we were looking to do and were convinced this was the right team to help us to continue to elevate the brand in this space.”

JWT has been aggressively building out its digital capabilities in China, investing in digital specialists and integrating those experts into its traditional brand teams. This integrated model has helped JWT Shanghai land a number of key digital project wins in 2012, including HSBC, Listerine, Sofy and Ford.

JWT will 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.

“We’re thrilled to be working with Starbucks, who are known for their innovation and leadership in both the coffee industry and in digital marketing,” says Eugene Chew, Director of Digital Strategy for JWT Shanghai. “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”.