Starbucks pauses Advertising on all Social Media
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
So obviously this is a principled act not self interested bullshit trying to whitewash an economic decision.
Let them save money, they don't need to be on these platforms.
Worst case, a few "social media managers" are out of work. The world will get by.
It's also why you might continue getting ads for subscriptions you pay for. They want to remind you of the value continually provided-- it's for retention purposes.
Coca Cola makes people fat and gives them tooth decay. Their product has a socially negative value. It's essential that they counter these facts with positive images.
Like do you hold the same opinion of coffee shops that sell sugary drinks, pastry shops, candy makers, snack food makers, ice cream shops, breweries, distilleries? Does “treats taste good” not qualify as a positive?
Like it’s wild to me to think that if I served you a piece of chocolate cake you would be like “how dare you! It has excessive calories and will rot my teeth!”
The constant fight for your attention. Billboards, storefronts, internet, tv, radio, everywhere you go you have highly researched pictures and sounds that try to manipulate your feeble mammal brain to purchase their products.
Your first paragraph suggests you regard advertising as something far more benign that it is.
But that seems a little weird. Does coming from a local soda shop suddenly make the drinks have fewer calories or less sugar?
* Soda, like all sweets, are bad for your health if not consumed in moderation or at least with mindfulness about their nutritional content.
* Large food-stuff manufactures are quite good at convincing consumers to buy their products and choose their brand over others with very expensive ad campaigns.
What I’m not convinced of, and what doesn’t follow from these, is that ads are effective at persuading consumers to buy and consume their products on top of their regular diets which is what would be required for them to be a public health issue.
I wonder who is wrong.
Advertising can be 100% effective but it doesn't make peoples' stomachs bigger.
Cool, but I’m still a person who has has a diet, normal hunger, and watches my sugar intake. Like it’s not as if I’m suddenly going to guzzle sugary soda indiscriminately. And it’s not like soda is special in this regard.
If I see an ad for a new flavor of Oreos that interests me it’s not like I’m compelled to buy a box and eat the whole thing in one sitting on top of my regular diet.
No but they do see increased short and long term sales as a direct result of their advertising campaigns, usually. Especially company's that sell sweet caffeine drinks. Sure you know Coke exists... but are you craving one now? The answer is more likely to be yes for most of their clients soon after being reminded it exists.
Edit: Phrasing
If we're talking $1B annual chunk of FB's $70B, and the pause is probably til november at the longest = 0.5B, it's a hit but not a death blow
also wonder if big brands were ever a fit for hyper-targeted ads -- they're not suing for mesothelioma or trying to drive a single sale, they're blanketing media to maintain public awareness
also wonder if social platforms will tweak visibility rules to make it harder for big brands to spread the word organically
The solution to this is offering sustained use discounts, like Google Cloud does. Have ongoing campaigns at a certain spending level? FB takes a slightly smaller cut, so you pay less. Turn shit on and off all the time? FB takes a larger cut, so you pay what you'd normally pay.
Edit: sorry I looked into the numbers and changed my stance.
Edit: originally a response to McDonald's selling a lot of coffee
Also, their drinks are very sugary and VERY calorie packed. I personally think starbucks on average is worse for someone versus a Coke/Soda/Pop:
https://globalassets.starbucks.com/assets/867c147d5dcc46e9af...
Additionally, I don't think their actual coffee tastes very good (granted, this is my preference). Even the lightest roast tastes burnt. Starbucks was the reason I thought I did not like french roast for the longest time. When I actually tried a different brand, I was surprised at how much I actually liked it.
I'm skeptical. How hard have you looked? Or what do you consider a "larger city"? Towns and cities of 80-100K people near where I live seem to have independent coffee shops. Sometimes across the street from Starbucks.
You talk about high calorie, but I never drink sugar stuff there. I only get Americano, so it's unfair to criticize them for things they make available when there's plenty of options if you want to stay healthy. It's your choice, it's not like they only sell unhealthy stuff. Just to be clear, a lot of popular hipster cafes sell sugary stuff too.
Also, their Americano tastes great. In fact I would rate it as one of the top grade even comparing to all the NY & SF hipster coffee stores I frequent.
Next, they are the only ones who provide large sized coffee (Venti) bar none. I drink a lot so I really hope other cafes provide large sized coffee but I have yet to find any non franchise coffee shop which does that. All the hipster coffee shops tend to only serve small sized coffee.
Also, Starbucks gives you infinite refill if you're their gold member, which is pretty easy status to achieve if you're a regular coffee drinker.
Also, Starbucks is the only coffee chain which reliably provides free wifi access. A lot of the local coffee places don't provide wifi at all, or don't like it when you try to use wifi for a long time.
I really want to support "local coffee shops" but all these things keep me from stop going to starbucks.
If I think about it, I go to starbucks about 50% of the time and the rest 50% I go to the other local cafes. But really, they don't give me high enough incentive to go.
This is what capitalism is, Starbucks provides a product which makes the quality of my life higher compared to other local cafes, so I have no way but to go there more often. It has nothing to do with an evil organization depriving the nice local cafes of their opportunity to compete.
For other coffee shops, why don't you just get a smaller Americano? it's just espresso shots + hot water, so a smaller Americano will be less diluted but the same amount of caffeine and better flavour. (amount of espresso varies from shop to shop, but you can just ask for another shot or two)
You probably know this already but Starbucks lets you get extra shot americano for Venti. So you have the option of getting more quantity AND still not get diluted. You don't get that from other cafes because they don't even provide large cups to begin with.
> only the blonde espresso & coffee are palatable. It's of course subjective, but the rest of their coffee is usually gross.
Yeah I am not saying Starbucks makes the best coffee in the world for every category, I'm just saying at least for Americano (which is basically just Espresso + water) it's actually on my top ranking, I know a lot of hipsters will throw stones at me for this but I personally find Starbucks americano much better than the hyped up blue bottle coffee.