Decaying Morals

Starbucks

Ξ May 15th, 2008 | → | ∇ morals |

Well, I don’t go to Starbucks. I have probably went two times in my life and I got smoothies. The problem? I don’t drink coffee. (Gasp!!!)

Say what you must but I have never liked the taste of that bitter stuff. It isn’t though I haven’t been exposed to it because my Mom drank like, thirty cups a day!!! I really doesn’t matter what I put in it either… I just don’t like it.

But, I will say, I get my jolt from an occasional Dr. Pepper in the morning, so I guess you would say that is my cup of “joe”.

Anyway… my honey saw this article on the internet and wondered if I wanted to write about it.

The problem, in case you don’t want to read it too much, is that Starbucks changed their logo on their coffee cups to this bare breasted woman with a crown on her head, and her fish bottom body with her legs spread open.

I read it and thought, well, I need to call the company and check it out. I mean it looked like an ugly drawing, to say the least, and certainly not impressive enough for a big company like Starbucks! When I reached the person on the other line, I asked him if they had changed their logo to a naked lady. With the ease of knowing all about calls like these, he said yes but that it was temporary. I asked him why they changed their logo. He said that the company owner decided to change it to show people that Starbucks was going to get back to their business roots. That it was the original logo back in 1972. I asked since it is temporary, when does it get changed back? The company didn’t have a specific date but it would be sometime in July. I asked him if he had any other comments about it because I was thinking that I would write about here and he said that I would have to talk to the press department about it. I declined to talk to them because I felt I got enough information.

Okay dokay… I was left with thinking, why would they feel that this was a “good” way to show people that they were getting back to their roots? Why was it only temporary if they wanted to show this? What other reasons did they have for doing this.

This is what I think.

I think that this is a tread in our country now. Have you ever heard of “Bad publicity, is still publicity?” I think that this is precisely why some companies dive into questionable material, advertising, and sponsorships. In my mind, here’s what happens.

1. The company wants to have more money or they get an activist in the corporate office.
2. They decide that questionable marketing gets a quick, cheap response. After all, the media gets involved and it is free advertising.
3. They implement the plan and watch the newspapers, internet, and newscasts.
4. They send out a memo to their PR people to make such and such statements.
5. They start to get email and phone calls telling them to pull their campaign, advertisement, commercials.
6. They have the CEO make a statement to the press.
7. They still don’t pull it and now they are getting support and complaints.
8. They milk it for as long as possible until they either figure out that it is helping or hindering their sales.
9. If they are lucky, they will have groups boycotting their product and get more empathy from groups that vow to shop wit them because they took this stand.
10. Things start to turn against them and sales are just starting to decrease.
11. They repent. The boycott is called off, their sales pick up and they are the good guys and everyone is encouraged to show them their support for doing the right thing.

Now do you feel used or played?

As I said, this is my theory but I think in a lot of cases right now, I am spot on!

Does this mean that you shouldn’t call, email or boycott? No! By all means, let them have it. In the end, you do what is right before your Lord. Let the Lord take care of them. They will get found out eventually.

What do you think?

Bible verses that fit this.

Proverbs 24:8, Proverbs 24:20, Proverbs 28:10, Matthew 12:35

Do you have more verses that would fit this situation? I bet you do!  

One Response to ' Starbucks '

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1. Lennie said,
   
   

   on May 15th, 2008 at 9:22 pm

   You are probably correct about this being all about publicity. It is also very possible that they were just trying to push the envelope in trying to reach the younger generation.

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