Teens Have Always Loved Drinking Coffee
Posted by anastasia on 01-03-2008
When I was back in Nashville this fall for the Totally Wired book tour, I was sad to see that the International House of Pancakes, aka IHOP, and the Burger King near my old high school were gone. Not because I’m a huge fan of chain restaurants, but because that’s where me and my friends spent a lot of time hanging out. Since we could leave school during free periods, it was often BK in the mornings, and IHOP after a night out. We mostly just talked, sometimes studied for tests at BK and yes, smoked (you could smoke inside way back then). Even though the coffee tasted like sludge, we drank it anyway.
Coffee has come a long way since the late 80s — in some ways the idea of the 1960s coffee house, which was really a gathering place for folk singers and youth activists has been reborn into the independent coffee house of today. If you’re ever in Nashville, check out Fido — I guarantee you we would have hung out there if it existed back then.
I hit a ton of Starbucks when I was on the road as well — one of the schools where I spoke gave me a $100 gift card as an honorarium, which kept me in soy lattes throughout my travels. If I stopped in during the afternoon, I would always see teenagers sitting in groups at tables either socializing or studying. I’ve written about this before in the context of Starbucks actually marketing to youth as well as featured a teen post about why a lot of teens are hopped up on energy drinks. I saw another local story on the teens and coffee trend I thought was worth sharing. From the article:
According to statistics from the National Coffee Association of U.S.A., the number of adults ages 18 to 24 drinking coffee has steadily increased from 16 percent in 2003 to 37 percent of total coffee consumption. Anecdotally, local baristas and teens say that drinking coffee and spending time in the inviting lounge-like setting of some coffee shops is a standard and somewhat trendy activity.
It will be interesting to see if Starbucks does do any direct youth marketing and what form it will take…That will be new, but teens hanging out and drinking coffee is definitely not.
Categorized under: Youth Marketing
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Strange… I went to a Starbucks a few months ago in the evening. Thought it was closed but they just had their shades drawn to filter out the light from the lamps… I told the barista jokingly that they should keep the shades up at night so customers know they’re open and she practically snarled at me: “We do that to keep those teenagers out of here. They’re so noisy and hardly buy anything.” I said “where else are they welcome to hang out at 9 pm on a Friday?” and left. Haven’t been back since.