Starbucks Makes a Viral Marketing Misstep

In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell said that in order to become epidemic, an idea needed to be “sticky.” If it wasn’t in some way memorable or didn’t resonate with people, it wouldn’t take off. Creating a viral epidemic with a product at the center is the goal of many a major company, but what’s a company to do when the wrong thing takes off?

That’s what happened to Starbucks this week when Southeast Regional Coordinator Kimberly Beasley sent an e-mail to Starbucks employees in her area:

Hi Everyone,

Starting today until September 30th, please join us in “surprising and delighting ” our family and friends, while introducing you to our iced beverages. Attached is an invitation for a complimentary iced Grande beverage. Please forward this invitation to everyone in your email address book.

Soon, the offer was everywhere, in e-mails, on blogs, and even on a few Websites especially for deal hunters. It got so big that on Tuesday Starbucks voided the promotion, saying that it was “redistributed beyond the original intent and modified beyond Starbucks’ control.”

The question before the court now is, how could Starbucks not see this exploding all over the place? You don’t get much stickier or more contagious than offering something for nothing, especially when you do it on the Web. Did they think that it would stay a closely guarded secret when employees were encouraged to “forward this invitation to everyone in your email address book?” John Moore at Brand Autopsy, who helped shape Starbucks’ field marketing programs, certainly seems to agree with this.

If I were Starbucks, I wouldn’t cancel the deal right away. Instead, I would admit the mistake, announce a change in the end date of the promotion and then continue to give away the free coffees for another few days. That at least would give time for the news of the offer’s cancellation to make its way through the networks that originally started the epidemic. The end result of this would be that fewer people would end up disappointed.

These sorts of things happen even to the best companies, and it’s in these situations that having a company blog is most useful. In this instance Starbucks could have used their blog to disseminate information about the misstep a lot faster, and possibly save themselves a few thousand irritated customers. We’ll talk more about using company blogs as both a lightening rod and a communications tool when controversy strikes at the next Blog Business Summit conference this October.