Starbucks And Its Anti-Christmas Red-Cups: All That You Need to Know

In a very strange and pointless turn of events, Starbucks became the Grinch who stole Christmas with its red cups. After making waves with its ‘Race Together’ initiative earlier this year, Starbucks found itself in news again this month -for serving its customers in red cups. Following its tradition of coming out with holiday-themed cups every year, Starbucks introduced plain red cups starting first of this month.

“We have anchored the design with the classic Starbucks holiday red that is bright and exciting. The ombré creates a distinctive dimension, fluidity and weightedness,” said Jeffrey Fields, Starbucks vice president of Design & Content, in an official announcement.

The Red Cup Controversy:

However, the design did not go down so well with customers. The internet being the internet  -it snowballed into a trending topic of debate. Starbucks was accused of being anti-Christmas by not using a template which had a more obvious suggestion of the festival. From celebrities to average users, suddenly everybody had an opinion on it, which they were more than willing to share.

Why doesn't @Starbucks at least make the cups about the actual season: winter? (snowflakes, snowmen..etc.) ❄️☃?

— Demi Lovato (@ddlovato) November 10, 2015

It started with a video posted by Joshua Feuerstein, an Arizona-based evangelist, on the 5th of November. The video was posted on his Facebook page where he talked about sparking a movement against Starbucks by tricking them into celebrating Christmas. He captioned the video in the following fashion:

“Starbucks REMOVED CHRISTMAS from their cups because they hate Jesus … SO I PRANKED THEM … and they HATE IT!!!!”, was the title of the video Feuerstein posted on his Facebook page.

Find the video here:

Starbucks quickly responded to the controversy by issuing another statement on the 8th of November.

“This year’s design is another way Starbucks is inviting customers to create their own stories with a red cup that mimics a blank canvas.”

The virtual world couldn’t get enough of the controversy and it came out with its own spoofs of Starbucks’ response and policies.

Going with one of the oldest cliches of the marketing world -any publicity is good publicity – Starbucks has managed to get millions to talk about it all over the world. The company’s tradition of coming out with holiday themed cups has been around since 1997, but it has never received a response as unexpected as the one this year. Looks like there isn’t much that can be said or done with the certainty of not offending anyone. Watch them comments under this post before you hit enter.