ebuzz - Be Careful What You Wish For

Be Careful What You Wish For

Last week, DMNews ran a story about a Starbucks email campaign that misfired.

Apparently the "Try Your Coffee" email — offering a free coffee beverage between certain hours of the day and upon presentation of the email coupon — was meant to be distributed to a select number of partners and employees.

Instead, the email took off and the promotion got out of hand. Copies were distributed widely and even appeared for sale on eBay. Starbucks, seeing that the campaign had misfired, promptly withdrew the offer.

What's wrong with this picture?

Starbucks made a mistake. The company didn't realize how popular the offer would be, or how the people for whom it was intended would decide to share it with others, or that no limitations had been specified in the email.

But everybody makes mistakes. It's in the response to the mistake that a company shows something significant about itself.

What if Starbucks had, metaphorically at least, shrugged and said, "Okay, this wasn't what we planned, but what can we do with it?" What if every store honored every email coupon — and ended up introducing more people to its beverages, people who wouldn't normally have gone in? What if there was a special on a certain pastry offered to accompany the free beverage, so people would experience more of the product, stay longer in the shop, possibly purchase more?

It seems that this could have been a great opportunity; instead, Starbucks ends up appearing parsimonious and incompetent.

And that's our take on the news today!

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