Starbucks, a Glass Bear, and the Power of Delight

I spend my early mornings with a coffee (always) and recently skimmed The Starbucks Experience. The book describes how a Starbucks can feel like a tiny refuge—whether you wander into one in Seattle or step off a flight in Tokyo.

That feeling isn’t an accident. It’s been shaped over decades from a people-first playbook that puts consistency, the customer, and the community front and center. Profit shows up last on their values list, and you can almost taste that order of operations in a simple cup.

The story began in 1971 at Pike Place Market. From there, the brand grew into a promise delivered locally. Holiday cups arrived in 1997 and instantly became seasonal cues: it’s time. Ritual builds through repetition, and repetition builds trust. Today you can walk off a plane, find the siren, and know exactly how the next five minutes will feel.

Now every year carries that familiar holiday hum—coffee, treats, and the warm glow of lights in windows. We expect the experience of names called across a counter and colors that signal the season. There’s comfort in knowing Starbucks shows up the same way, every time.

And then… a glass bear waddled onto the counter and stole the whole show.

The Bearista cup dropped earlier this month and—boom—ritual turned into spectacle. Lines formed at dawn. Social feeds lit up. I live inside brands all day (the blessing and curse of running a design studio), so spikes like this rarely surprise me. But this one did. A sweet, round glass bear carried more excitement than any seasonal flavor ever could.

It reminded me that delight often arrives through symbols as much as messages. The bear’s softness, the feeling of a tiny companion, the sense that you’re carrying a character through your day—it all invited affection. Small, portable joy fits the speed of the season. A latte warms your hands while a little bear waves from the cup. It’s whimsical, human, and irresistible to the internet.

I keep thinking about the contrast. On one side: five decades of craftsmanship, a company that learned to make comfort repeatable, a tradition that signals the holidays before the calendar does. On the other: an unexpected object that sparked a grin and ignited a frenzy. These forces work together. A bear in glass, welcomed by a community already tuned to comfort, created a shared smile across cities.

All of this, to me, says that promise and play fit in the same cup. Promise gives a brand its backbone; play invites people to look twice. Together they turn everyday routines into moments worth sharing.

And this is the space I love most—personally and at JHD—helping businesses honor what’s consistent and sprinkle in the kind of small magic people talk about later. Brands grow when they live in both places.

If this way of seeing brands resonates—and you want a place to explore it with others who build for a living—join us at The Nexus. It’s where we collect observations like these and turn them into momentum.

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