The smoothly oiled Starbucks PR Machine
Starbucks closed recently to retrain their baristas. Why was this necessary? A massive overexpansion, poor training program, sluggish growth, focus on sandwiches and music instead of coffe, and competition from Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds? It seems their US president was shown the door today. Not pretty.
But the PR machine is operating perfectly. The cover story was that Starbucks was going to "revive the intimate, friendly feel of a neighborhood coffee shop". You mean the ones they try to put out of business? Still, the entire planet was notified of the planned three hour closing. It was considered national news in the United States, complete with radio and TV interviews of Starbucks staff. Tens of millions of dollars of free advertising in return for shutting down during three slow late evening hours. I thought that was smart.
But what if you were thinking of working at Starbucks and read about the training? Apparently it was pretty medieval. Who wants to take a job where you have to be trained to be snob? Seriously, and at a part-time fast food job? Forget it.
No problem. Starbucks staff get health benefits, and no one should forget that. What if there was a health-related story about just how amazingly cool Starbucks staff were? What if the story were so irresistibly sweet that it would have to make the national papers, just like the shut down? This might heal any potential damage the shut down did, right? That would be smart!
Shoot on over to today's human interest piece in the New York Times about, get this, a Starbucks barista who donated her kidney to a customer. Not to take away from the impressive generosity this woman showed, but why didn't this story make the rounds last fall when it happened? Right in time for the Christmas season perhaps?
Nah, probably better that it showed up today to either remind workers that Starbucks is great, even though they train the hell out of you, or to totally bury the news that their US president got the sack today.
Say what you like about their coffee, their business practices, or their organ donors, but their PR department kicks all ass. It almost makes you feel sorry for the schmucks at the New York Times who swallowed this hook, line and sinker instead of reporting on, oh, the massive cost of the war or something useful. Almost.
Postscript: There is apparently some evidence that Starbucks's ubiquity leads to an expansion of demand for coffee so large that many neighborhood coffee shops have increased sales after a Starbucks moves in across the street... Anyone wonder who planted that story?
posted by Sebastian Good @ 11:31 PM
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4 Comments:
Please reread the article carefully. The surgery is next week not last fall. This has nothing to do with Starbucks PR. My mother is the one donating the kidney and non of this was planted. My mother has a heart for people...thats the bottom line. Whether she worked at Starbucks or anywhere else...you could never change my mothers heart.
As I said, the generosity of the donor is impressive, inspiring even. What is even more inspiring (to me anyway) is how common this uncommon generosity is. (It is even arranged occasionally in chains called math trades, where person A gives to B gives to C, for instance.) There were 6036 kidney transplants in the United States in 2007; one every 45 minutes. The University of Minnesota alone did 22 non-directed transplants (i.e. from an unrelated person) in the last six years. My point is that it is suspiciously good timing for one of these stories to be on the front page of the paper at such an auspicious time for the beleaguered company.
Reference for your "facts" regarding kidney transplants should be given as you obviously have a bias. I would hardly call this type of generosity common (do you know anyone who is living and has donated an organ to a stranger, for instance?) Are you suggesting that no one dies of kidney failure, or is it that you regularly (or ever for that matter) performed such an act for a relative stranger that justifies such self-righteousness, or just that others do it?
Why does it matter that this is Starbucks to you? I think that is your issue. I would bet that isn't what most people got from the story. Since you are in apparent need of something relevant to concern yourself with, I suggest the font/background color combination on your page. Its pretty unappealing.
Wow, Scott. Tell us how you really feel. At least tell us the reason you're coming down so hard on this innocent blog entry. Slamming the font and backgound color combination?! That's harsh.
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