Discordant Music II

In response to a string of comments in response to his previous Brand Autopsy about whether Starbucks needs reinvention, John Moore expands on his thinking.

Further considering Starbucks' move into the music business, Moore offers several examples of the company's falling prey to lifestyle brand mentality in the past. Among his laundry list:

• Mazagran a failed carbonated coffee soda beverage from Pepsi and Starbucks.
• Joe Magazine a lifestyle magazine from Time and Starbucks that lasted three issues.
• Cafe Starbucks a full scale restaurant that never expanded beyond three locations in Seattle.
• Circadia a radically hipper version of a 'Starbucks' complete with a performance stage and alcohol coffee drinks. Circadia never connected with customers.
• E-Commerce and Internet Portals Starbucks forged online and offline partnerships with Cooking.com, Living.com, Kozmo, and a handful of other internet companies. (Of course, Starbucks wasnt the only major 'bricks and mortar' retail chain to get caught up in the dot-com craze.)
• Books Starbucks partnered with Oprah Winfrey to sell Oprahs Book Club selections as well as other books consistent with the 'Starbucks lifestyle.' After two years of sluggish sales, the partnership ended and Starbucks stopped selling books.
• Reading, Writing, Rhythm merchandise assortment a failed attempt to reinvigorate slumping coffee-related merchandise sales by focusing on odd lifestyle products such as pencil sharpeners, leather bound journals, desk clocks, and other fancy office accessories. This merchandise approach lasted 10 months.

Granted, he does also serve up some successes -- bottled frappuccino and whole bean in the grocery store among them -- but I wonder, how many failed experiments add up to a successful experiment? For example the bottled frap clearly emerged out of the failed Mazagran bid.