Brandchannel (an online publication of the European advertising agency Interbrand) has a column at the Business Week Innovation section. I’m not sure this appears in the printed edition, but it’s free to access the current articles at the web site.

If your goal is to draw your audience closer, sometimes advertising is exactly the wrong tact to take, especially if your audience is skeptical of your motives. Of course, Starbucks has never used advertising very much, but as an American company it has special challenges in overseas markets. I especially like the fact it is willing to solve this problem slowly.

Starbucks: Selling the American Bean (via Tim Manner’s ExtraTexture)

Having good people on the ground is vital. This does not necessarily mean parachuting in managers from the US. Local recruitment is needed, and Starbucks places great store by its partners, as it calls its employees. An important role for partners is to forge links with local communities. Put somewhat crudely, Starbucks wants to do good as well as make a profit. It encourages its partners to make a difference to local causes, whether in downtown Baltimore or Kowloon. Encouraging contact with communities feeds back into the brand, diluting the sense that corporate America is rolling its tanks into town.

This approach is then supported by a quiet but effective program to nurture the development of farming communities where the coffee is grown. The company strives for a policy of fair sourcing and a commitment to support health and education. These stories and messages are there but they are often hard to communicate. The background is that there is a crisis of trust in the good faith of corporate USA. Too many scandals, too many examples of misused power, have left a predisposition worldwide to believe the anti-American case. It can be countered, but it needs persistence — and it needs a genuine commitment to brand values that are built on a more outward-looking approach. Starbucks is also a brand that communicates its values through individuals; the more a brand does this, the less vulnerable it becomes. The brand reasserts its human values to win hearts and minds, rather than relying on its sheer might.