Dark Roast All Day? This Week’s Story Finder Moment: How We Promote Changes

Coffee shop drive-thru windows aren’t my preference. I don’t save time waiting for the high-maintenance customer’s order to slow the drive-thru assembly line process. My order is always the same: Dark Roast, no room. I order, then the barista turns around, pours the coffee, and we exchange smiles. I walk out the door and give an unseen snarky smile at the driver in line who only moved up two car lengths while I completed my gathering mission.

My search for efficiency has led to increased transparency in recent years. I go inside the store because stretching the legs and lower body appendages has moved from a casual stretch to a survival maneuver. Plus, never pass up an opportunity to use the facilities. So when I made a random afternoon stop at a Nashville Starbucks last week to fulfill those two transparency needs, I found a story that changed the way I order my afternoon coffee.

Medium and light roast coffees aren’t my preference, but I never let those inferior blends prohibit me from the experience. If you have medium and light roast, I’ll take it rather than wait for the dark roast pour-over. “Do you want dark, medium, or light roast?” she asked. I paused, looked at my watch, and then looked at the barista. It was 2:25 pm, and the dark roast wasn’t available after 11:00 am. There was a disturbance in the force.

“Uh, dark roast, please,” I said without much confidence that this would happen. My next question was predictable: “When did you start making dark roast in the afternoon? Is it fresh?” She laughed because I wasn’t the first doubter.

Starbucks has been updating its coffee machines for a few years, and it has finally arrived at this Nashville MetroCenter-Salemtown shop. The Clover-Vertica is a single-cup coffee machine. Think of it as an expensive Keurig with fresh coffee beans at the top of the machine. I see these types of coffee makers in 7-11 and Circle-K when I need an afternoon cup. I’m led to believe those beans make it fresher, even if I’m not getting my preferred Starbucks burnt flavor. But I can get a dark roast at that 7-11 with the bean machine. Until a few weeks ago, I was avoiding Starbucks in the afternoon because I didn’t want a medium or light roast.

I handed my phone to the barista and asked her to take a photo of the machine because I planned to blog about it. Then I turned around and asked her if the new device had changed their routine for better or worse. “Oh, it saves us time and we don’t waste as much coffee,” was her quick response. It falls in line with an article and review I found about the new Starbucks Clover-Vertica coffee toy. Coffee geeks click here.

Since finding that afternoon story, I’ve been to several different stores with the goal of looking for a barista or promotional materials promoting the new coffee delivery system. I haven’t seen anything in-store or on the Starbucks app. Perhaps it’s a cost-saving measure rather than a quality-of-product decision. Maybe I’m one of the few coffee nerds who finds this move fascinating.

However, I’m not on an island when I say every change to your brand is an opportunity to promote and market the change. This opinion manifested itself yesterday afternoon when I took a break from driving to respond to emails. The barista asked me if I wanted the coffee in the porcelain mug before I had a chance to say, “Porcelain, please.” Then he added the promotional line: “Do you know in-store refills of coffee are free when you use the mug?” I didn’t know that. It was another drop-the-mic moment for someone who finds satisfaction in a simple coffee bar.

When did that perk start? I referenced my Starbucks app, scrolled to the bottom story and discovered the refill gift started January 27th! How did I not know? Is it because I haven’t been as often in 2025, or because I don’t scroll through my app looking for features? Both, possibly. But there’s one obvious reason: No one promoted this brilliant, more-time-spent-in-the-store feature in person.

How often do we make a brand adjustment, not a wholesale change, but an adjustment and not talk about it? Here are three reasons why:

• Assumed Awareness: We’ve researched, planned, talked, designed, recorded, and then repeated the process dozens of times. Does the audience have access to our conference rooms, Zoom meetings, and emails? The customer and listener don’t know until we go out of our way to inform them how this change will benefit them. Yes, them, not us. For my radio and audio brands, it’s 2025. We have a radio station, an online stream, an app, an email list, and seven social media channels to promote these changes. That’s an opportunity.
• Operations Over Marketing: If you’re using a new software system to enhance efficiency, you won’t promote it to the public. However, if your product is made (or brewed) differently, it affects the customer, and that presents a promotable opportunity.
• Connecting Change to Experience: I don’t know if the Clover-Vertica machine produces a better product until I can compare it side by side with the brew pot. However, there’s an opportunity to make me believe it’s better by sharing the benefits with me before I taste it. Personal persuasion is powerful.

Finally, as I scrolled through the Starbucks app, I found this video. If you’re a radio personality, there’s a good chance you listen to a song or watch a video to get you focused or hyped before you go on the air. I would watch the video below every day before starting my shift if I worked at Starbucks. The emotional benefit is clear: an AC/DC song and a video story. More importantly for me, I would understand my role is to create a moment of enjoyment or distraction. Those moments are worth promoting.