Executive Briefing
Panera’s $9 coffee subscription and the art of forming a habit
And: How Starbucks’ personalized email marketing is the best in the business.
By Dan Frommer on Sunday, March 8, 2020 at 7:00 am
Panera, the fast-casual restaurant chain known for bread bowls, made an attention-grabbing announcement late last month: For a $9 monthly subscription fee, customers could have unlimited coffee in its more than 2,000 US stores.
While this is sort of about coffee — Panera boasts that it recently revamped its coffee program, and will also offer free almond milk in its coffee stations — it’s not really about coffee. And it’s not really about recurring subscription revenue, either. Instead, this is a potentially fascinating experiment in demand generation and the coveted ability to create daily habits.
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