Starbucks recently announced it is closing 600 stores in the U.S. this year. Harvard Business School Professor John Quelch writes about Starbucks’ strategic marketing errors in “How Starbucks’ Growth Destroyed Its Brand Value.”

It’s hard to argue with any of his points. Starbucks went public and expanded too fast, losing the essence of its brand: a unique and exceptional coffee experience, worth a premium price. 

With quarterly earnings now the driver, quantity and volume replaced quality. Starbucks lost the feel of a neighborhood cafe and became more akin to a generic chain, with Starbucks locations popping up all over the place. Then they got nipped on the low end by McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts which began offering a variety of coffee drinks at much lower prices.

So what do they do now? Recently they’ve focused on quality again, going so far as to close all stores for a short interval while baristas were re-trained in coffee-making techniques. But it’s too late: they’ve lost ‘quality’ as a brand attribute. That leaves ‘low cost’ provider or ‘fast service.’ Which means we should expect more store closings and a long, slow decline for a once highly respected brand.