Jamba Juice just violated a law of marketing – they are trying to extend their product line. The real question is why? Watch the video and see how it relates to you.
Note: Becker pointed out a mistake I made in the video – McDonald’s served coffee for many years. I meant to say that McDonald’s started serving specialty coffees and heavily promoting it recently.
Hopefully the aforementioned video offered some clarity in terms of how brands can get diluted. It happens a lot with small businesses because a lack of marketing strategy. Dang, it even happens to big corporations.
But no one’s perfect, so do share a mistake you made or something you would have done differently.
Drink on,
Lawrence Chan
P.S. Jamba’s Coffee Craze tasted NOTHING like coffee; just brown sweetness.
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Thanks for the video Lawrence! I always love hearing what you have to say
i get your point lawrence, it drives me nuts when photographers say “specializing in weddings, portraits, sports, fashion, commercial, etc…” but sometimes, offering an additional product or service is a good thing. i know a lot of people talk about how porsche “ruined” their brand by making SUVs, but as far as i can tell… they are still doing just fine. i doubt just by offering coffee jamba juice will be going out of business any time soon. they’ll certainly never be known for coffee, but they’ll probably make a little more money by offering it. can’t hurt, might help. only time will tell.
also, what about apple? they used to just sell computers and software. now they sell music players and have become the largest music retailer in the world. then they got into the phone business and seem to be doin’ just right. their business evolved so much that they dropped “computer” from it’s name.
who knows… people may end up loving jamba coffee. i doubt it, but you never know. i am sure they appreciate you giving them a free plug though. the fact that you blogged about it means people will be talking about it. good, bad or indifferent… they are talking. it starts with a little buzz, then soon there may be jamba juice/coffee taco truck. now there’s an idea!
and fyi, mcdonalds was selling coffee long before starbucks ever came into existence.
Good points B! And thanks for pointing that blip I made about McDonald’s; I added a correction under the video.
Note: Becker pointed out a mistake I made in the video – McDonald’s served coffee for many years. I meant to say that McDonald’s started serving specialty coffees and heavily promoting it recently.
Matthew Saville pointed out below that Jamba always change their menu, so that could actually be one of the umbrella strategies they use. Since I do not have internal knowledge, I can’t confirm it. However, from an outsider’s perspective, it’s like A-1 Chicken Sauce.
In terms of Apple’s approach, I don’t think they narrowed themselves into only computers from the beginning. Similarly, Google is all about search and ads, yet they’re moving into the mobile market, which uses browsers, thus falling under their umbrella strategy.
P.S. I will make another article talking about focus
hey Lawrence, i have been following you for almost two years now, before you were a big marketing guru and so admire you for where you at right now,
lessons lessons, first big lesson I learned was I was using a social media avenue which was attracting very low end clients, I maxed out on my friends capacity, it was called orkut, and although I got alot of exposure, I really needed to be spending the time on my blog and launching website and not on orkut, so I deleted my account, all those supposed friends, and it was scary, a little lost but I felt I needed to start over and the right way and pricing myself the correct way, I did start doing maternity, family then childrens parties and events and a year after weddings, my goal now is weddings and boudoir, I absolutely know I do not want to do family portraits so just two weeks ago, I took out all the portrait photos from my website and am working on a separate website and brand for boudoir, I do want to specialize, I do not want to be all over the place sending my clients the wrong message,
thanks for this post
hey Lawrence, i have been following you for almost two years now, before you were a big marketing guru and so admire you for where you at right now,
lessons lessons, first big lesson I learned was I was using a social media avenue which was attracting very low end clients, I maxed out on my friends capacity, it was called orkut, and although I got alot of exposure, I really needed to be spending the time on my blog and launching website and not on orkut, so I deleted my account, all those supposed friends, and it was scary, a little lost but I felt I needed to start over and the right way and pricing myself the correct way, I did start doing maternity, family then childrens parties and events and a year after weddings, my goal now is weddings and boudoir, I absolutely know I do not want to do family portraits so just two weeks ago, I took out all the portrait photos from my website and am working on a separate website and brand for boudoir, I do want to specialize, I do not want to be all over the place sending my clients the wrong message,
thanks for this post
I am exactly the photographer you are mentioning…or at least I was prior to WPPI when I got a chance to sit down with Lawrence… he drew me a very high tech little graph thing explained what I was doing wrong gave me a very spiffy looking business card and then smiled at the long line of people vying for 10 minutes of his time. I went home and hung said graphic doodle in my office, and deleted the seniors, pets, family, model portfolio, albums off my site, and deleted my early declarations to shoot product lines, business portraits, and anything else you wanted me to photograph. Lawrence asked me if I wanted to be Tiffany’s or Walmart… I had a vision of walking into tiffany’s and seeing clothes and groceries and home decor along side the diamonds…. for a while I struggled with the stubborn notion that I could be high end and spread out across all photography genres… while arguing this notion with my husband he told me: That would make you target…it’s just a snobby walmart.
We do offer coffee to our clients when they come in…but it’s not from Jamba
I am exactly the photographer you are mentioning…or at least I was prior to WPPI when I got a chance to sit down with Lawrence… he drew me a very high tech little graph thing explained what I was doing wrong gave me a very spiffy looking business card and then smiled at the long line of people vying for 10 minutes of his time. I went home and hung said graphic doodle in my office, and deleted the seniors, pets, family, model portfolio, albums off my site, and deleted my early declarations to shoot product lines, business portraits, and anything else you wanted me to photograph. Lawrence asked me if I wanted to be Tiffany’s or Walmart… I had a vision of walking into tiffany’s and seeing clothes and groceries and home decor along side the diamonds…. for a while I struggled with the stubborn notion that I could be high end and spread out across all photography genres… while arguing this notion with my husband he told me: That would make you target…it’s just a snobby walmart.
We do offer coffee to our clients when they come in…but it’s not from Jamba
Lawrence
Definitely some food for thought! We recently decided to expand our business from doing just wedding photography to accepting other photographic jobs as well. Economic reasons was the main consideration. But instead of watering down our wedding photography business, we decided to create a new identity for the general photography section of our business. Hope this was the right way of doing it. We will monitor the direction of our new business and brand to see whether it gets recognized within our local wedding photography market, and will make a decision regarding the future of our original wedding photography brand later.
Would’ve loved to attend one of your workshops, but not easy to as we are based in South Africa!
Marius
thank you so much for all your fantastic, eye opening posts. i always feel like i take something new when i read your blogs. thanks so much for sharing you time, knowledge and opinion. =)
My wife who has worked at Jamba for 4 years off and on says that they DEFINITELY need to start selling TACOS, like [b] mentioned. (although I don’t think he realized it would be taken that way…) That would make her day. Or at least her lunch hour.
And yeah, when they change their menu ALL the time, it’s annoying. Take In-N-Out for example- How many total items are on that list? Three burger options, fries, and a soda / shake. Been that way forever. And they’re packed, every waking hour. Yes, there are other options, but they’re not on the menu. So either simplicity, or the appearance of simplicity, is one of their alluring traits. Oppositely, off the top of my wife’s head Jamba has about 10 different juices, 6 different kinds of sherbet, and 15 different fruits. I’m not good at math, but I think you’re supposed to plug all those numbers into some kind of multiplication formula. Either way, that’s a zillion options.
I guess it’s a balance between the customers who like the same old thing every time, and the customers who like to try something new every time. I’m guessing that Jamba Juice knows their market better than we do, and that they DO have a significant number of customers who ALWAYS try something new. My wife confirms this. And I’m betting that as long as people are addicted to over-priced coffee and the perception of middle-class affluence that comes with it, Jamba Juice will sell coffee pretty well…
=Matt=
I mentioned under B’s comment that if Jamba’s strategy is to offer variety, then they’re doing the right thing. However, when I think of Jamba, I think of fruit juice and fruit smoothies.
I still believe that they’re trying to satiate consumer / culture’s acceptance of coffee as being mainstream. Nevertheless, it is a dilution of their brand. Because if I wanted a sweet coffee drink, I would get a frappuccino.
I like your observation about choices. It is an innate enemy for us social creatures. By committing to one food item, we technically lose out on others. More choices = worse off.
WOW thank you!!! SO true. I am right there. I specialize in children & families but do only like 6-10 weddings a year so I have a hard time marketing that since people come into my studio and are in AWE of the kids pictures (I have a few wedding ones up… and albums) and the brides say “i can’t WAIT to have you photograph my babies!” um.. that’s not why you are here right now
So how do you do it? Are you suggesting I stop advertising weddings? I do 95% of my business in portraits but if people want a wedding I do it (if they pay for it LOL)
I feel lost too.. I feel like I am totally attracting tons of portraits (thankfully) but not as many weddings… Law of Attraction I guess
It’s a hard thing to do, Hillary. If you make the right sacrifices to create a stronger focus, then your business will have a higher chance of flourishing. Otherwise, you will remain boot strapped and in abeyance.
Confusion is very common because we don’t want to lose out on potential business, so we do it all! If I ever want fried chicken, I think of KFC. If I want coffee, I think of Starbucks. If your previous clients think of the world’s best family photographer, they should think of Hillary.
Great post Lawrence!!
Enjoyed this video greatly. Wonderful information
100% agree with you. I always wonder why all the photographers out there do all kinds of photography. Figure out what you are best at and passionate about, and stick to that. I myself used to want to do it all also, but I realize that it doesn’t always work that way. I feel my clients like hiring me, based on the fact I ONLY shoot weddings. That is my specialty. Just like Starbucks and coffee and KFC is chicken.
Wow, very thought provoking. I’m a fairly new photographer who wants to strive to do it all. I never thought of things in this light. You can be sure that I’m going to be rethinking things to market myself better! Thanks for the inspiration and encouragement!
Hmmm, your pretty much repeating what we were taught in our visual imaging degree. People try to spread themselves to thin and cover every angle of photography, and much of the time it is areas of photography that don’t consume their passion anyway. Having done three yrs on the degree and following the program, eventually you not only narrow down your interests i.e. in the second year, you need to choose from many subjects such as video, photography, graphic design, web design etc etc. In the second semester of the second year you more or less know which areas of photography you do not like. i.e. architecture and landscape, or shooting family portraits because the degree is so intense and they just throw everything at you in three years time slot. By third year, your still in essence doing something you don’t like but your beginning to see what you do love doing the most. From second year I majored in photography and minored in graphic design and honestly I cannot tell you how much i hate illustrator and indesign. lol. that work always got put on one side and the assignments were done on the last minute hence low grades. In a sense though I do have design experience that some photographers just don’t have. In third year, second semester, it was final project time and I found myself definately not loving working with small children because i was on pretty much the same time constraints as a full on photographer, and with children you need to slow down, be patient…this is a mother of 5 children talking, but I am 46 yrs old and I have done children to death. I want to do something for me. So many people crash in and say why don’t you do newborns or kids portraits etc etc…. it’s because i can get two sessions with adults in one session designated for children. just because your good at photographing your own kids (because theyre used to the camera being prodded in their face) does not mean you will be a hit with everyon’es kids. I also don’t do coming down to a 2 yo level as good as some kindy teachers do it. I feel stupid and silly when I do. Others may feel really great telling kids there is a fairy in the camera …I don’t. haha.
What I did enjoy whenever I got the opportunity was shooting females and making them look great later and working images in ps. I also know I love weddings…enough to want to be there and capture it all. I think that’t the most important thing… that you love weddings and every dingle element about them. Pointless being synichal about marriage and believing is a waste of space and shooting them…you are not going to feel the same way or as passionate about it. Also I feel shooting weddings and processing them takes time with so many images. At the same time i don’t want it to be the only thing that i do, so boudoir is a nice fall back.
I have marketed my two web sites differently. I felt they needed to be two separate things to be honest, but that will never stop me pursuing the two areas that I personally enjoy. Not saying I cannot take photo’s of anything else right now but with me I need to feel passionate about what I am taking photo’s of and I need to enjoy it. I see so many photographers covering everything and if they’re coping with it good on them, but for me personally, I’d rather get right to the point and build on it and make it look the best.
Thank You Lawrence for your inspirationa materials and enlightening in terms of marketing myself on the photography ground. That video gave me a kick to go follow my first idea – to promote my wedding photography on a separate website. Thnx again
I am your fan.
Great video Lawrence! When I went into a specialization of just wedding photography, my husband asked me why I would corner myself into a market. I kindly told him that he would not got to a general practitioner for brain surgery so why go to a general everything under the sun photographer for weddings? He’s also a teacher and has his main degree in Math and then a minor in education, since he teaches at the middle school level, he works with a lot of teachers who got their major in Elementary Ed (being they can teach up to grade 8 with that degree, my husband can teach 6-12). Just like me, he’s a specialist in what he does. It took that to get him to understand why I’m doing it and it finally made sense! I hate that Jamba is offering coffee, it’s not what they’re about and always went to them for my natural high (hello wheat grass!) but now am disappointed that they’d sell out to the caffeine.
I loved how you explained it to him
That’s actually what I did here.
CONNECT THE DOTS
The moment we tell someone, you should do it this way… No one will listen. However, if you make a comparison to how it relates to said audience, it makes all the difference.
Glad you’re focusing on a single category; just remember that you can do even more focus. Like I mentioned earlier, I am a wedding photographer that focused on… Own that Chi market, Kara!
Interesting observation. I love learning about marketing and brand. Thanks for sharing a fun video Lawrence
Fun post.
Thank you for the great tips. My husband and I own and run a wedding planning company with a limited advertising budget and are always looking for ways to improve on our service. We consistently tell each other that we should be focusing or specializing on one area of the wedding industry so that we can become not only experts in our field but knowledgeable to our clients as well. We follow your blog and love the advice!
I’m happy to hear that I can help
Although my posts are generally geared towards wedding photographers, but marketing strategies are universal. I’m glad that peripheral industries can benefit from this as well.
If you ever have any questions, you’re welcome to comment and I will try to address them in future posts.
This is a great post! Thank you for this
I’m stuck in the boat where I don’t know HOW to target an audience. I want clients who want to pay for great work. I’m still in the early stages and trying to figure out my pricing (which is a pain in the butt). I run into a lot of people who don’t want to pay for anything, they just want everything for free. And I want to get OUT of that area! AHH!
Anyway, thanks again for this great post!
What an eye-opener! (hanging head low) I am guilty of being one that specializes in Weddings – but will shoot anything to pay the bills. I guess it’s kind of like stepping over dollars to pick up dimes. Time to pull my head out and FOCUS on what I love, not just what I know. Thanks for the wake-up.
This is an excellent point. I didn’t realize they were selling coffee, but I thought the same thing when I learned that they were selling lunches and catering meals (wraps and salads).
That is not what people want when they go to Jamba Juice. They want juice and smoothies…
Coffee?!?! I think there are WAY too many businesses out there that are trying to dip their fingers into too many markets… This also makes it REAL tough to get good ranking for search engine optimization as well. All of these million “specialties” only dilute one’s website. If your business only focuses on one or two niche services then it makes it real easy to be seen by your customers. I would rather be amazing at a couple things then “so-so” in many…
[...] example is Jamba Juice’s decision to not focus on juices. Dilution of one’s brand is detrimental. It’s like asking for A1 [...]
[...] other businesses were encroaching into their industry. *cough* just like how they are now serving coffee flavored smoothies that do not taste like coffee [...]