bedbury joined starbucks as its chief marketing officer in 1995 in seattle, washington. bedbury and ceo howard schultz worked to transform the company into a global brand. in his first year, bedbury helped launch the frappuccino and open starbucks' first international stores in japan. bedbury worked with former nike and starbucks insights director jerome conlon to create the "third place" positioning, which is described as, "not home (1st place) or work (2nd place) it's somewhere in between, a public hang out."