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Sometimes a cup of coffee gives a jolt not just to the person whose name was mangled on the cup, but also to Starbucks itself. Take the coffee giant’s seasonal release of its Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL), which among fans seems to inspire the fervor of the Second Coming, even though it has, in fact, been resurrected annually for the last 20 years.
On Thursday, August 22, when PSL made its fragrant return, foot traffic in Starbucks across the US surged 24.1% over the average for the previous eight Thursdays, according to data from Placer.ai.
And the bump kept bumping, with foot traffic over the next three days also up compared to the same-day-of-the-week average from the previous eight weeks, up 12% on August 23, 15.9% on August 24, and 11.3% on August 25.
North Dakotans were the most jubilant, with foot traffic in that state on the first day up an average of 45.5%, followed by Kansas (42.6%), Utah (42.2%), and Iowa (41.3%). Comparatively meh were Mississippi, where customer volume that day rose only 4.8%, Louisiana (9.5%), and Alabama (11.6%), which a blog post from Placer.ai suggested could be “due in part to the region’s warmer weather,” since the southern August swelter may undercut the appeal of a piping hot latte.
My fair latte: Launching a tradition associated with the fall and winter holidays before Labor Day might seem like another example of Christmas Creep, Summerween, or Hallowgivingmas. For Starbucks, the PSL rollout was its earliest ever, two calendar days earlier than last year’s, according to Axios, and with overall foot traffic this year slightly down (-0.3%) on PSL launch day, per Placer.ai.
The PSL also helped Starbucks get a double shot of positivity after some less than stellar news cycles. Its same-store sales revenues have declined for its last two quarters, and the company, which touts its environmental stewardship, has faced backlash over the less-than-environmentally friendly commute of its new CEO, Brian Niccol. Rather than move to the company’s Seattle headquarters, Niccol will commute nearly 1,000 miles there in a company jet from his Newport Beach, California, residence.