US and GB: Starbucks has a new chief executive - How has its brand health been in recent years?

Laxman Narasimhan is Starbucks’ new chief executive, moving into the role two weeks earlier than planned. Narasimhan, who joined the company in October 2022, replaces founder Howard Schultz who served as interim CEO April 2022 onwards. In a letter to Starbucks’ employees, the new CEO wrote about continuing Schultz’s plans, which include ‘updating trainings, improving equipment, raising wages and adding other benefits to non-union employees - against the backdrop of the long-standing unionization issue at the coffee chain. 

We look at how the brand has fared in recent years in the US and Great Britain.

According to YouGov BrandIndex - which tracks consumer sentiment towards thousands of brands daily - Starbucks’ brand health in the US has dipped in recent years. 

Since 2017 (when Kevin Johnson took over as CEO), Starbucks’ Index score - which is an overall measure of brand health, made up of General Impression, Customer Satisfaction, Quality, Value, Corporate Reputation and Recommendation – in the US dropped from a net score of 11 in January 2017 to 9 in January 2023. 

Charting a different course in Great Britain, the company’s Index metric has grown from a net score of -4 in January 2017 to 4 in January 2023. 

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Methodology: YouGov BrandIndex collects data on thousands of brands every day. Starbucks’ Index score is an overall measure of brand health, made up of General Impression, Customer Satisfaction, Quality, Value, Corporate Reputation and Recommendation and delivered as a net score between -100 and +100. Scores are based on an average daily sample size of 36023 US adults/24528 GB adults between January 1, 2017 and January 1, 2023. Figures are based on a yearly periodicity. Learn more about BrandIndex.

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