General Marketing

One of the toughest jobs for any marketer is to repair a damaged brand. Sometimes, it’s not repairing damage, but simply changing the attributes that the market associates with the brand. In early 2008, Howard Schultz of Starbucks was faced with this challenge. Starbucks, while a well recognized brand, had become associated with cookie-cutter coffee houses and mediocre expresso drinks. Their stock had fallen by almost half, and Howard Schultz, the founder, had returned as CEO after several years away from running the day-to-day business.

Schultz re-invigorated the Starbucks brand through what he called the “Transformation Agenda”. This was a concept he borrowed from Michael Dell, and it allowed him to articulate on a single page his vision, his strategy, and the key moves or tactics that he would take to transform the brand. He communicated this Transformation Agenda through a series of 15 memos to Starbucks Partners (their word for employees) in his first four months after returning as CEO.

As Agile Marketers, we can use this concept of the Transformational Agenda to articulate our own vision for where we want to take our brand. We can use it as a roadmap for a series of Sprints to take us on a long journey of transformation.