By the 1990s, Starbucks had established itself as a major national chain and was changing the way Americans drank coffee. Before its rapid expansion, getting a coffee in this country usually meant picking up a scalding hot cup from a McDonald’s drive-thru or drinking free refills with your Denny’s Grand Slam. Former CEO Howard Schultz built the Starbucks brand not just on serving better coffee, but also on inviting customers to stay awhile. He wanted their shops to be a “third place” for customers—a gathering space where people could spend time away from work or home, relaxing and socializing. 

For many of us, the local Starbucks did become a gathering place. In college, my friends and I would spend hours there studying and hanging out. At the same time, many remote workers used Starbucks as their mobile office. It was a warm, friendly environment with plenty of seating and reliable internet access. We were allowed—even encouraged—to linger. Thus, Starbucks differentiated itself not just by the quality of its coffee, but by reframing what having a coffee could mean. “It never really was about the coffee to me with Starbucks,” wrote Matt Dollinger for Fast Company in 2008, echoing the sentiment of millions. “When I think about Starbucks, I think about Comfy Chairs, Great Smells, Pretty People and Wi-Fi.” 

But Starbucks was hardly immune to market demand, and in the past decade, an emphasis on speed of sales has upended the third place ethos. According to CNN, mobile app and drive-thru orders now make up more than 70% of Starbucks’ U.S. sales. Indoor seating was eliminated in new pickup-only locations. The “Comfy Chairs” in many stores’ lounging areas were replaced with backless stools. And one of the brand's friendliest gestures—handwriting names on cups—was replaced with printed orders. 

But that initial reframe—from just coffee to communion—is part of what made the Starbucks brand so successful. Before stepping down in 2023, CEO Schultz saw the erosion of the brand’s special third place appeal and called for a re-reframe, or a return to “being experiential, not transactional.” A blog post on the company website puts its renewed focus on being a third place this way: “At Starbucks, human connection has always been at the heart of everything we do. We’re not just about coffee, we bring people together—that’s what made people fall in love with our brand in the first place.” For instance, they have begun offering customers the convenience of online ordering while encouraging them to linger. Their homepage reads, “We saved you a seat. Order your drink for here and stay awhile.” The company also recently reintroduced handwriting on cups. And in larger cities, they are establishing “Starbucks Reserve” locations with leather chairs and couches that invite customers to lounge. 

Just as Starbucks offers more than coffee, districts have so much more to offer than the “product” of education. For students, school is both a second and third place: one where they share meals, do their homework, play outside, and participate in extracurriculars and social clubs. It is often a place where the larger community organizes as well. So what would it look like to reframe your value proposition from “education provider” to students’ “home away from home”? Is there a different way to frame all the different roles your teachers play, such as carers or guides? The point is to consider whether your current framing serves you—and to change it if it doesn’t. 

I first encountered the Stanley 1913 brand in 2021, when a trainer at my gym excitedly told me she was on a waitlist for one of their limited releases. But Stanley 1913—as the name suggests—has been making thermos bottles for over a century. Until recently, it had been a utilitarian brand, trusted by manual laborers and blue collar workers to keep water cold or coffee hot. For most of the company’s 100 years, the thermoses all came in “Hammertone Green,” suggesting it was just another tool for tradesmen to use.

But times have changed. The widespread recommendation that we each drink eight glasses of water per day has created a much bigger demand for water bottles. And athleisure has emerged as a new clothing category—comfortable, stylish and virtuous, signaling to the world that you take care of yourself (and that you can afford nice things). Social media “fit-fluencers” keep the trend alive, sporting stylish outfits in videos about health and fitness. 

So around 2020, Stanley pivoted to make hydration as fashionable as gym clothes. They reframed their product from equipment to outfit accessory and started releasing limited “drops” in a variety of colors. The drops were a hit, and the brand expanded their offerings. Today, their most popular model is offered in over 40 different color combinations, and you even have the option to add custom letters and graphics. 

By redesigning their bottles with striking color options to match every outfit or mood, Stanley taught their audience to think of their cups as fashion accessories—a reframe that motivates customers to buy multiple versions of the same product. The new approach has been enormously successful, but what can K-12 learn from it? Well, it’s certainly applicable if you sell merchandise. Can you create demand for a new T-shirt or sticker by offering a limited “drop” in a bold new colorway? If you can reframe school pride as a fashionable accessory, you can increase brand visibility and loyalty. 

But Stanley’s example is about much more than selling products. Just as its water bottle shifted from a utility to an expression of identity, so can schools shift their value proposition. For instance, you might reframe “we offer strong academics and extracurriculars” to “our community helps students discover what they’re good at—and what they love.” You haven’t changed what you offer, but you’ve changed what being a part of your school community says about its members.

For years, Avis was stuck behind Hertz in the car rental market. Instead of ignoring the competition or pretending to be better than Hertz, the brand flipped the narrative with the slogan, “When you’re only No. 2, you try harder.” 

You might wonder why Avis would draw attention to its second place status. But Hertz was the clear market leader, and Avis was losing money. They certainly wouldn’t make any gains on the competition by using the same boring marketing language shared by every other car rental company. It might have been a risk, but reframing what it means to be second place turned a weakness into a promise of better service—cleaner cars, shorter lines, friendlier staff. As one ad proclaimed, “Avis can’t afford smudged mirrors.” The campaign painted Avis as a company striving to be the best, thereby implying that Hertz was simply coasting. Within a year of this new marketing push, Avis turned profitable and its market share increased. 

As you already know, school choice and other factors have made the K-12 market increasingly competitive. Our advice to you? Don’t pretend to be Hertz if you’re not. If your district doesn’t have the highest standardized test scores in the area, consider what lower test scores might indicate about your school community. Do teachers and administrators push students harder because you’re not in the top spot? Do those lower scores signal that you don’t teach to standardized tests, but rather focus on subject mastery? There are a number of ways you can shift the conversation from a so-called weakness to a promise of different and better service—just like Avis. 

In the end, the specifics of these three examples matter less than the overall message: A successful reframe is within reach. If your community doesn’t talk enough about what makes you different or special, your messaging needs to start leading with that. If the same old story is not working anymore for your district, consider telling a new tale. If you can’t beat the big guys down the road in a certain area, shift attention to the ways you can. There’s more than one way to look at the same picture, and there’s more than one way to present your district to the world.