Oh-Oh, Starbucks!

A little about me…

I am a student at University of Amsterdam, currently studying Communication Science in the master program. I finished my bachelor studies in Bucharest, Romania, also the place where I lived for most of my life. I chose to talk about this study because I simply LOVE COFFEE, I mean…who doesn’t?! Plus, one cannot talk about coffee without thinking about Starbucks. 

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Stubborn CEO.

The study made by Novak and Richmond (2019), analyzed the campaign #RaceTogether initiated by Starbucks in 2015. The main goal of the campaign was to stimulate conversation about race worldwide. The campaign started following some events in the USA involving the decision not to charge a police officer who killed an 18-years old teenager. The CEO, Howard Schultz was the one who originally supported this idea and wanted to see it through, regardless of objections coming from inside the company. In one of the studies concerning this campaign, Taranto (2015) criticized the Public relations Team for not completing their role as ethical watchdogs in the days before #RaceTogether was launched, or they were disregarded by Howard Schultz. Furthermore, Hayley Peterson stated that the secrecy in regard to the campaign was a sign that it was not supported by the staff. All things considered, we can draw the conclusion that Schultz was acting as a transformational leader, and not as a leader that performs inclusive leadership.

As soon as the campaign was implemented, customers backlashed, using the hashtag to criticize Starbucks. Some of the tweets were even saying they should’ve looked first in-house since the company is not that diverse. Not only customers were criticizing this campaign, but also public figures like Gwen Ifill, a respected journalist, Dina Pomeranz, a Harvard Professor, cast members of Saturday Night Live, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Moreover, Senior Vice President of Communication deleted his Twitter account as a result of numerous negative messages.

Gwen Ifill: “Honest to God, if you start to engage me in a race conversation before I’ve had my morning coffee, it will not end well”

Dina Pomeranz: “Starbucks' #RaceTogether invites customers to talk about race. Uses only white hands in related photos.”

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: “it is pretty clear, no one has said no to this guy (i.e.: Howard Schultz) in 25 years.”

Getting in over  your head...

Hazelton (1992) classified six messages strategies that are usually used by specialists, namely informative, persuasive, facilitative, coercive, co-operative problem solving, and bargaining. In the case of Starbuck’s campaign, they were trying to facilitate conversations between their customers and the public sphere regarding the matter of race. Previous research demonstrated facilitation message framing to be successful in topics as teen pregnancy, health issues, and other socially difficult topics. But what they did not take into account is that the facilitation strategy does not only consists of providing a topic open to discussion, but also actively participating, keeping participants engaged. So, one can say…they did not think it through. Researchers warned about the difficulty that this strategy implies, and companies have to have a fully developed strategy and the desirability to further engage when considering this approach.

Studying this campaign, revealed that there are two crucial implications when addressing race. First, you have to keep participating in the discussion, having thoughtful, honest and reflective inputs. Second, you must choose the timing wisely. Starbucks did neither of those and it did not go so well, did it?! They thought it was the perfect timing, but people were still sensitive to the subject and it backfired.        

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Everything will be OK in the end. If it's not OK, it's not the end...

Even though the campaign did not have the positive outcome that was expected, Starbucks registered record sales for 2015. Consequently, we can say that the communication campaign failed, but the attention that was drawn to it helped to increase sales. Let's hope next time they decide to launch a more sensitive campaign, they will do the proper research beforehand

Main reference: Novak, A. and Richmond, J. (2019). E-Racing together: How starbucks reshaped and deflected racial conversations on social media. Public Relations Review, 45(3), p.101773.