As new categories emerge, we need new names. I was thinking about this in connection with places like Starbucks. What the heck do we call these places, if we don't say "a place like Starbucks?" I wondered what phrase most people would use, which took me of course to Google. And also to Answers.com, the outfit that supplies Google results pages with links to definitions of terms.
Categories are important because they provide insight into mental maps people have of the world. To see what I mean, come with me while we look at the coffee results...
Coffee house was a strong performer at 4 million results. But I wouldn't describe a Starbucks as a coffee house, would you? That phrase suggests to me the kind of place where folk musicians played in the late sixties. Answers.com kind of agrees with me on this, defining a coffee house as "A restaurant where coffee and other refreshments are served, especially one where people gather for conversation, games, or musical entertainment."
Coffee shop scored well at 8 million results. Coffee shops evoke individual stores, the kind you might find in a small-ish community or on the fringes of the downtown core. These places still have booths, they don't sell cappuccino, and they probably only sell one kind of coffee, but they might also have homemade soup. Answers.com defines a coffee shop as "a small restaurant in which coffee and light meals are served."
Coffee bar
scored a surprisingly high 1.8 million results -- surprising to me
because it seems artificial as a name, like something an industry
association would use, or a marketing researcher, but not a real
person. Answers.com has no definition for this phrase, only each word,
which I think supports this view.
Cafe did much better at 124 million results. But if I said to someone, "let's meet at a cafe", they might think I meant a place where waiters provide table service. Or they might think I meant a coffee shop. But I doubt they would think I meant a Starbucks competitor. Answers.com defines a cafe as "a coffee house, restaurant or bar." I guess they think the term has lost its crispness too.
My best notion was coffee place. Not a very popular expression, judging by Google's 110,000 results when I searched this phrase. Coffee places, the plural form, did much better, at about 22 million results. The results included lots of lists of good places to get coffee, not necessarily large chains.
Why does the category label matter: who cares?
What does it mean to lack a category label for something that is so
popular, and still growing rapidly? It might mean that the leading
brands get to define the category in terms of themselves and their own
name. As soon as we have a good category label, the brand value of the
leader will have diminished a bit, won't it? We won't say to each
other, "is there a Starbucks near there?", we'll say "Is there a coffee thingy near there"?
The point, however, is not really coffee bars or places. Understanding how your customers actually categorize your competitors
can be helpful, actually. It shows what factors are important in
defining similarities and differences between brands or other market choices. If we had a
bunch of coffee drinkers in a room and asked them to organize all the
names, and then asked them to explain their organization, we could
learn a lot about the thought process.
This is the sort of oblique approach that is much more revealing than asking people, "how is Starbucks the same or different from Caffe Ritazza?
What do you think? Help me out here.
