Compose a 2750 words essay on Starbucks and Its Difficulties During the Time of Economic Hardship. Branded firms have their unique approaches to improving their market reach, brand image of the product, and maintain the quality standard of the product. Keeping in view the rapid rate of their expansion and growth at multiple locations these companies manipulated their marketing strategy according to the location since different locations offered different marketing environment (Larson. 2008). These companies focused more on its quality standard by critically handling the entire process involved from the purchase of raw materials till it’s possession by its end user. These companies took a great care of each and every step to avoid compromising the quality standard of their products. In case of Starbucks Corporation, the firm created a coffee culture and also provided an atmosphere of relaxation for their customers who helped them in bringing the concept of “third place” where the first and second places were considered to be the home and office respectively (Larson, R. (2008). Many efforts are made by these companies under its strategic approach towards marketing to gain their customers’ trust and offer a value-based service to their customers. The companies also face problems due to variations in their customer group which varies with the location. Under such circumstances, these companies faced challenges which were mainly of following types, what mode should be used by the company to exist in the international market, how they should design their product offering to their customers keeping in mind the variations among the behavior of customer group. Along with it, another major challenge for such companies was to compete with other brands of the same industry serving globally to their customers. The marketing strategies adopted by Starbucks Corporation worked like a magnet which drove their customers to do things as per the company’s expectation (Carroll. 2007). A brand name in watchmaking industry is Maurice Lacroix which is famous for its luxurious watches adopted strategy to promote their product and also form the alliance with a brand name in movies production house Dream Works for their film named Time Machine.