Starbucks Uses Social Media To Boost Engagement With New Official “Secret Menu” Hidden In Its App – CoffeeTalk

Starbucks is launching a “secret menu” in its app to capitalize on the momentum of its “not-so-secret menu” broadcast channel on Instagram. The secret menu will contain rotating offers for drinks created by fans on social media using Starbucks’ customization options. This approach is part of Starbucks’ new chief brand officer Tressie Lieberman’s promotional strategy, which aims to turn every day at Starbucks into a viral drop.

Customization is a big part of Starbucks’s appeal, but its menu has become so sprawling and complicated for baristas to produce that Niccol has cut it back by nearly a third to simplify production. The Secret Menu, which is launching with a $25,000 prize to stoke interest, allows Starbucks to ride a TikTok trend and create glitzy, viral drinks with ingredients already available. This is a far cry from how Starbucks used to view viral creations as operational headaches that were at odds with its own business model.

The Secret Menu allows Starbucks to analyze viral menu items, decide if they need to be tweaked for scale, and then share them back with its audience in a way that can work. Customers are often the best ideas, and Starbucks is working to help put media behind fans and get more reach around new ideas. The company is building a workflow so that they don’t need to come up with their next hit while ensuring that customers can easily taste the wild thing they’re gawking at online.

The only question remaining is whether a secret menu can stay cool when it’s available to millions of customers. However, anyone who’s ordered a speak-easy-inspired Neapolitan shake or animal-style fries from In-N-Out knows that the answer is a sad and true, “absolutely yes.”

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