How Howard Schultz Built Starbucks Into a Billion-Dollar Brand Without Traditional Advertising

But I believed very strongly that we could build a different kind of company. I never believed, never, I think it would have been arrogant to believe, that we could have 1,000, 2,000, or 7,500 stores in the US and around the world. But something really magical started happening. And it started happening as a result of not advertising or conventional consumer classical marketing. The fact is that Starbucks spends very little on traditional advertising. It started happening because we demonstrated to ourselves, and now the world, that to build an enduring, sustainable, long-term business and consumer brand, it's not about fancy marketing. It's about establishing a very powerful and unusual emotional relationship with the customer.