McDonalds VS Starbucks in the McMocha smackdown - Tuesday, October 20th

Has anyone noticed McDonald’s has it out for Starbucks? It does.
Mcdonald's has launched a coffee marketing campaign so massive and fluffy that they are clearly aiming to take a bite out of Starbucks foam. Forget about word of mouth. This is a manipulated buzz in action. Demand for this product doesn’t arise out of people talking about this great coffee they found I hits you in the bill board, or oozes out of your plasma screen.

If it was that way I can imagine people in the office talking about their McMocha. "There were like 12 strips of chocolate and the whip cream was like Santa's beard I swear this drink was sweeter then my kids Easter
Bunny."

It looks to me like The McStrategy is to do to Starbucks what Starbucks did to independent cafes all over America on their ride to the top. Crush them like coffee cherries in Honduras.

The Irony? Starbucks gave McDonald's the key to the castle a few years back when they streamlined operations and went to fully automatic espresso machines in most of their locations from coast to coast. (you can still get a shot pulled from a La Marzocco machine at the Pikes Place Market store, in Japan and most of Europe) Baristra’s from Starbucks in Michigan have told me. "Working at Starbucks is like working at McDonald's, all you have to do
is push a button."

There is no more grinding, dosing, tamping or pulling the shot. It all happens inside the machine. Micky D’s looked at the new Starbucks way (for all I know Starby’s sold them the idea?) and realized they had
the infrastructure; real estate and what’s better, drive-thru windows for which to serve them with!

There was only one more thing. They had to automate the milk steaming and they did. The McEspresso machine sits on a cube refrigerator where the milk sits and is pumped from refrigeration into a steam chamber and into the drink. (The health department loves that)

Well, the resolution is lost in yet another copy in the land of another level of coffee plagiarism. I wonder what kind of lingo will come out of the McCafé movement? "Double Fat Santa with extra strips."

Posted by John at 6:22am 10/20/09 &mdash share on or