Starbucks Holiday Cups: Latest Scandal?

There has been a great deal of controversy on social media about Starbucks. Every holiday season, Starbucks switches over to holiday themed cups, which I thought was a great way to get customers in the spirit. The design has always been winter-themed. Whether you celebrate, Hanukkah, Christmas, or some other holiday during December, I think the cups are a great way to get people excited. However, people were extremely offended by the transition to a plain red cup, saying things like "Starbucks is blowing off Christmas", or "Starbucks removed Christmas from their cups because they hate Jesus". After discussing reputation management in my group/professor meeting this morning, I felt this topic was appropriate and related to marketing.

To be honest, I think this is all a bit ridiculous. Starbucks is now dealing with a huge crisis management situation, and their PR team must be struggling to figure this all out. It seems like they tried to avoid controversy by having a more neutral cup. Without any images on it, you would think that there would not be any room for people to find the cups controversial. But, there are certain people out there who find anything and everything offensive! This has become a huge topic of conversation. Yesterday, I overheard my roommates talking about it. My professor also brought it up this morning in class, and one of my friends asked me today if I heard about it! When I began to search "Starbucks" on Google just now, "Starbucks cup" and "Starbucks red cup" were two recommended searches, because I assume there is so much conversation about it right now!

As I mentioned before, this can relate to the marketing concept of reputation management. Your brand's image and reputation play a huge role in whether or not people decide to purchase your products. Starbucks is already a well-established brand with millions of loyal customers- so will this "scandal" have an effect on their sales? Will this negative W.O.M. and publicity hurt their brand image?

I think that scandals like these often help brands in the end. My thoughts on W.O.M. are that whether it be positive or negative conversation, people are talking/thinking about your brand. This can generate awareness that the brand exists (in this case, that doesn't play a huge role because Starbucks is a huge company), and that people care enough about the brand to be talking about it. I think that this may encourage people to go to Starbucks and see what the new cups look like for themselves! I'm tempted to take a trip to Starbucks myself and see if this whole thing is even worth all the controversy!

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Cups from 2014:

Cups from 2015: