Starbucks knows you love your name & here’s how they use it.

Akshay Lakra 🧭
2 min readJan 15, 2023

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Here's what I got for myself.

Remember, last time you ordered Mocha Frappuccino and you got it in a cool looking choco filled pack with your name scribbled in style. Your face had a grin.

But have you ever given a thought, why do they do it?

Here’s what it is —

When you order a Starbucks Coffee, the cashier asks for your name (even if you’re the only customer there).

I have outlined three specific reasons why they had been doing this:

Order Management & Grabbing Customers' Attention:

In the beginning, Starbucks wrote customer names because they received too many orders. Marking down names would prevent mistakes with the orders. But this didn’t stop there.

Apart from that, calling out users with their names is the best thing you can do. Don’t you believe? The sweetest sound in any language is our name. So, Starbucks stopped calling out the drink and started using the customer’s name instead.

This makes the “Cocktail Party Effect” work as well, in which a person who is engrossed in conversation nonetheless hears his or her name mentioned elsewhere in the hubbub of the environment. ( Ever happened with you?)

Let Customers Feel A Sense of Ownership:

Writing names on the cup make customers feel a sense of ownership. " This cup of coffee only belongs to me, not anyone else. " Also it adds immense brand identity.

Self Promotion:

It's a simple yet mind-blowing way to get brand attention. Imagine people posting pictures with/of their cups on almost all the digital channels. This itself brings millions worth of digital impressions for nothing.

❌ But they also write names wrong. Why so?

( Is it because the cashier can't hear your name due to the noisy coffee grinder & people chatting. Well, NO!)

  • They misspell names for the sole purpose of getting those customers to post pictures of their cups with that totally recognizable green logo and Starbucks hashtags and mentions all over social media. It’s a fun tradition born out of interaction between customers and employees.

That’s it! I hope this gave you a fair idea on why Starbucks writes your name ( and that too wrong). 🤯

Do Share your experience at Starbucks in the comments and tell us if they misspelt your name.🗯️

#starbucks #starbuckscoffee #coffee #coffeelover

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Akshay Lakra 🧭

A Marketer amid the chaos . Read more about Marketing, Growth & Startups & let's together point the Growth Compass 🧭