From beloved comic strips PEANUTS to electronics giant Samsung, Starbucks has continuously kept the interest and fascination of its customers with limited edition collaborations and product drops. These collections have kept people coming back for more no matter how many tumblers they already own from the brand.
Recently, the coffee chain released its highly anticipated ‘Turn Up Your Summer’ collaboration featuring BLACKPINK. The collection, in a typical Starbucks fashion, included a bevy of offerings that embody the group’s dynamic energy and playful demeanor at select Starbucks stores across Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.
For the collaboration, Starbucks specially crafted a pink Frappuccino drink called the BLACKPINK Strawberry Choco Cream Frappuccino Blended Beverage. It also had stylish drinkware and lifestyle accessories with funky graffiti motifs and doodle prints that feature a contrasting pink and black colour palette. All of which were very quickly swept off the shelves by fans.
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Whether it be a signature beverage or specially designed merchandise, how does Starbucks continue to come up with eye-catching collaborations that keep fans coming back and adding to their ever-growing collections? The answer, it would seem lies in fostering a human connection and understanding the consumer, according to Starbucks’s Asia Pacific partnerships director, Lisa Leung in an exclusive interview with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE.
“Starbucks is uniquely in the business of human connection. Many are coming to us for a connection with others as the everyday ritual of coffee is a powerful way to bring that to life,” she added.
With the BLACKPINK collaboration, Leung pointed out that the campaign video that aimed to capture the genuine reactions of each member of BLACKPINK trying their specially created Frappuccino and sharing their favourites from the