Starbucks Wins PR Windfall with Holiday Cup Controversy

 

It may be just a cup, but Starbuck’s minimalist-design red holiday cups became both a public relations controversy and windfall for the brand.

The coffee chain stirred up a major controversy with its holiday season cups that featured nothing but a small Starbucks logo. Some customers accused the company of abandoning Christmas. Joshua Feuerstein, who calls himself an American evangelist and social media personality, first heated up the controversy with a Facebook video that went viral.

“Do you realize that Starbucks wanted to take Christ and Christmas off of their brand new cups?” Feuerstein asked. “That’s why they’re just plain red.”

The Christmas Movement

Feuerstein said he tricked Starbucks by saying his name is Merry Christmas, causing the barista to write Merry Christmas on his cup. Intending to start a movement, he urged others to do the same and suggested social media users protest the cups with the hashtag #MerryChristmasStarbucks. He also vowed to bring his gun into his local Starbucks, saying that Starbucks also hates the second Amendment.

His plan to start a movement was largely successful. Many customers used the hashtag on Twitter to blast Starbucks. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested boycotting the company.

Although not realizing it, Feuerstein — who stood outside a Starbucks while delivering his tirade — also presented Starbucks with a PR bonanza.

Many customers used the hashtag #ItsJustACup to mock the complaints as overblown. The world has more important problems, such as widespread poverty, wars and cancer, to name a few, they tweeted. Some who said they are practicing Christians themselves criticized the movement, saying religious belief has nothing to do with the color of coffee cups.

One social media influencer, Missy Mwac, said complaining that the chain had “taken Jesus out of Christmas” was silly, since Starbucks has never featured religious symbols on its cups. Saying your name is Merry Christmas in order to trick the barista into calling out “Merry Christmas, your coffee is ready” is childish, she said. After church she planned to order coffee at Starbucks and give her name as usual: “Wonder Woman.”

For Customer Doodling

Responding to the social media firestorm, Starbucks issued a statement on its website, saying the unadorned cups are like a blank canvass that encourages customers to doodle their designs. Customers have been doodling designs on cups for years.

“In the past, we have told stories with our holiday cups designs,” said Jeffrey Fields, Starbucks vice president of Design & Content. “This year we wanted to usher in the holidays with a purity of design that welcomes all of our stories.”

Noting its core values of inclusion and diversity, the company said it will “continue to embrace and welcome customers from all backgrounds and religions in our stores around the world.”

While the public continued to squabble over the cup design on social media, the Starbucks brand emerged as a winner. The key was its calm response. Rather than going into a full crisis mode, it issued a straightforward explanation for its design selection. By not mentioning the controversy, the statement, titled “The Story behind the Design of Starbucks Red Holiday Cups,” which has a link on its home page, kept the focus on its cups rather than creating a Starbucks vs. the critics media story.

Other companies can learn from its measured response.

The company gained enormous amounts of free publicity and reinforced its brand image. The controversy helped boost website traffic to its page just as the important holiday shopping season begins. According to Fortune, the company said that one in seven American adults received a Starbucks gift card during the last holiday season, up from one in eight the year prior.

Bottom Line: Starbucks is soaking up the PR benefits over its plain holiday red cups. Many customers are steaming over the lack of holiday motifs on the cups; others say their anger is misplaced. None issue or not, the hullabaloo is creating massive amounts of PR for the brand.