You know your brand is in trouble when a major men’s lifestyle magazine devotes a page of vitriol to it in its recent issue. And that is exactly what GQ recently did regarding Starbucks (http://men.style.com/gq/talkback/openletter).

Much has been written of late about the problems at Starbucks. Its earnings are way off and per-store sales growth is anemic (looks like the $4 latte is not recession proof after all). The company itself has openly admitted it has gone off course in recent years. The CEO Howard Schultz wrote a scathing criticism of the decline of the Starbucks coffee “experience” and it was famously leaked to the press last year (probably by Schultz himself). In that memo, Schultz said that Starbucks stores had gotten too far away from the sights, smells and warmth of the company’s patented “Third Place” (the other two places being home and work) experience. Indeed, he noted how the Starbucks’ Barrista’s no longer actually brewed the coffee (the machines are all automatic now), and the microwaved breakfast sandwiches stunk up the joints. All true.

Schultz’s memo generated a lot of press. Plenty of commentators noted it was kind of disengenuous for Schultz to decry the diluted Starbucks coffee experience when he was the one who instituted the changes in the first place, all intended to drive growth. And, even though Schultz announced that the company would be cutting back on domestic growth, he still signaled to the Street that Starbucks would add many more stores internationally to keep revenues and earnings high. The rap from a number of business journalists was, “Howard,  you can’t have it both ways.”

At least you can try, but it usually does not work in marketing. If you succeed beyond your wildest expectations, like Starbucks did, it is incredibly hard to balance the desire (and investors’ need) for growth while keeping true to the authentic brand promise and experience that got you there in the first place.

Starbucks is of course not the first successful brand to face this dilemma. My firm worked for a leading outdoor retailer and catalogue company a few years ago that was growing dramatically and was poised to go public. They were also struggling with the growth/authenticity balance, and it was especiallly evident in the stores where $10,000 Beretta shotguns and handcrafted fly rods were sold next to souvenir stuffed animals and bags of cheap candy. The company’s purists decried the brand dilution, driven by the never ending need to generate more revenue. At the same time, the company faced increasingly aggressive and clever competitors, who stepped up their game to offer the real deal for hunting and fishing true believers.

A recent Wall Street Journal article delved further into Schultz’s actions to resuscitate the Starbucks brand following his reinstatement (by himself) as CEO several months ago. The story noted how Schultz is known as a micromanager in trying to get the Starbucks details just right. As much as we all hate micromanagers, that is probably the best thing Schultz could do. Little details make a big difference in a retail environment like Starbucks. The company has gotten too many of those little details wrong in the past few years.

He has his work cut out for him. The two Starbucks that I sometimes visit (less so these days) in San Francisco are dirty, crowded, absolutely unappealing. The microwaved breakfast sandwiches do indeed stink the place up. And, there is really no coffee aroma at all. The baked goods could not be less appetizing looking. But, people still seem to buy a lot of them and those super sugary and high fat concoctions brimming with whipped cream (what are they thinking?!).

There are so many lessons here for brand marketers. Most importantly, you “got to dance with the one that brung ya’.” That is to say, don’t lose sight of the loyal customers who built your business in the first place, and why they became loyal to your brand. If you change things over time, and think you can take their continued loyalty and patronage for granted, think again. The consumer marketing world is littered with brands that let growth requirements take over and then lost the game because the brand had become a shadow of what made it a winner in the first place.

Even with its problems (and the negative commentaries in GQ), Starbucks can come back. Schultz seems to have the right instincts. But, he would do well to remember that growth and financial success at the expense of the authentic brand experience can become a trap. To keep it real, you frequently have to keep it small. And, in ultimate business and marketing terms, that is not always a bad thing. There is such a thing as too much growth.

Just look at Starbucks.

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