Consumers cutting fancy coffees

• From Advertising Age:

Americans appear to be cutting back on their Starbucks.

After reporters in several different cities noticed much shorter lines at their coffee outlets, Ad Age decided to commission Lightspeed Research to find out whether either New Year's resolutions or a tough economy were turning latte sippers into bean counters.

The survey results reveal that 60% of Americans have scaled back on fancy or expensive coffee in the past six months; 56% report cutting back just since the beginning of the year. The culprit was overwhelmingly the economy, with 90% of survey respondents saying they are doing so to save money. Upmarket coffee "just cost too damned much," said one respondent. "I don't drink as much Starbucks as I did before," said another.

Those who have scaled back the most since the beginning of the year, according to the online survey of 500 Americans conducted between Jan. 14 and 15, are consumers 45 to 54, with fully half (50.4%) saying they have "cut back a lot" on fancy or expensive takeout coffee. That was followed by consumers 35 to 44 (37.5%) and 25 to 34 (33.3%).

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