On March 16, 2015, the latest Starbucks controversy caused an uproar with their latest campaign. The coffee company announced they have invited their baristas to write ‘Race Together’ on customer’s coffee in order to “stimulate conversation, compassion and acton around race in America.”
Of course, with social media, people were spreading their opinions rapidly about Starbucks, who has an astonishing 3.8 million followers on Instagram alone. Pictures were being spread throughout Instagram and Tweets had the company trending. Every news platform reported about this latest controversy. Many people did not think very highly of this new campaign and state they “just want their coffee”. Others did not mind because the cup would eventually end up in the trash. The Communications Executive of Starbucks even deleted his Twitter account briefly due to the amount of criticism. The campaign backlashed and left people nationwide upset.
The campaign was intended to only last a week and ended on March 22. However, the coffee company does plan on keeping the conversation about race a priority through employee forums, talk with community leaders and police officers, and a commitment to the community. Despite the amount of criticism it received, this recent campaign had everyone talking about Starbucks. In this case, all press was good press for the dominating coffee chain.
