There are many leaders in this country calling for a "national conversation" about race. More importantly, there appear to be millions of people ready to have that conversation. That combination could trigger a sea change in race relations in the United States. Or, if handled poorly, it could take what it is trying to fix and break it even more. At least one company is already learning that lesson the hard way.
Starbucks is no stranger to controversy, even to engaging in political wrangling. Their frequent stances on liberal issues have made the brand a counterpoint to the conservative block's love of Chick-Fil-A. But in this latest gambit, CEO Howard Schultz and Starbucks may have stepped in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Messaging is not just about the "rightness" or "wrongness" of what you are promoting or denigrating. It is about the "when" and "why" of it. And, of course, the "how." In this case, Starbucks has failed to meet these three standards — at least according to customer reaction.
As formulated, Starbucks's "Race Together" campaign was intended to begin a national conversation about race. One method of pushing the idea forward was to have baristas write the phrase "Race Together" on customers' coffee cups. The company also promised to publish "conversation guides" on the topic, pamphlets with starter questions such as "How have your racial views evolved from those of your parents?"
Aside from asking an entire generation to tacitly accuse their parents of racism, those ice breaker questions may have come across all well and good in another context. But Starbucks chose to ask their often distracted and rushed customer base to begin those conversations not when they were ready to engage in them, but when some random barista chose to foist the issue on them. As you might imagine, millions on social media did not take the suggestion well.
The result is that Starbucks is in a battle to redeem its brand from charges that range from naiveté to crassly manipulating racial tensions to drive traffic. Now, instead of generating the conversation Schultz says he wants to have, the company — and its executives — are defending themselves from the rapid-fire criticism cannon that is social media.
Right out of the gate Starbucks is insisting their intentions are pure. They said they expected to be criticized but never wanted to create problems for their customers. The problem is that you may be able to control the conversation, but you cannot control the reaction to the conversation. Particularly when you are demanding a reaction from people who would rather not discuss it in the first place.
The cup-writing portion of the campaign was discontinued this week, less than a week after launch. Schultz has framed the discontinuation as the originally planned phase-out rather than a retreat under pressure. The conversation guides and the broader corporate-conversation framework will continue. Whether either survives the next quarter as a serious brand initiative is the open question.
A few working considerations for brands watching this case.
The intent does not protect the execution. Starbucks's stated goal — encouraging dialogue about an issue the country has been working through for centuries — is unobjectionable. The execution attached that goal to a transactional moment customers were not expecting and did not consent to. Intent and execution are separate things. Brands that confuse them produce campaigns like this one.
Frontline staff cannot be conscripted into corporate social initiatives. The baristas who were asked to write "Race Together" on cups did not sign up to be the public face of a corporate stance on racial politics. Programs that put hourly workers in the position of unwilling spokespeople produce internal friction the corporate communications team will hear about for years.
Social platforms compress the timeline. The Race Together rollout was announced one week, mocked the next, and partially discontinued the week after. The platforms that brands count on for amplification can also flatten a campaign in days. The discipline is to anticipate the negative response before launch, not to manage it afterward.
Authenticity is measurable. Customers can distinguish between a brand that engages with a difficult subject because it has been doing the underlying work for years and a brand that engages because the brand wants the credibility. Starbucks has done a meaningful amount of the underlying work — philanthropic investment, employee education benefits, supplier diversity, College Achievement Plan. The Race Together campaign nevertheless landed as opportunistic because the cup-writing tactic was so visibly disconnected from the substantive work.
This will end up in textbooks. Whether as a case study in brave corporate citizenship that the public misread or as a case study in good intentions executed poorly is going to depend on what Starbucks does next. Either way, the brand has spent some equity on the campaign that it did not need to spend. The recovery is in front of them.
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
