Starbucks: Ad Scams over Real Advertisements
While on Instagram, scrolling through my Explore Page, I found a post showing a fake Starbucks ad on one side and the other showed Starbucks’ response to the fake advertisement. According to Business Insider, there have been multiple ads posted using the hashtag, #MEBUCKS. The advertisement states that Starbucks will give out free drinks to anyone who streams Taylor Swift’s latest song, “Me”. However, this is untrue, as the famous coffee franchise denied it via their own Twitter account. Starbucks said, “This is not a valid Starbucks offer, and this screenshot is fake. To confirm any Starbucks promotion, you can check your Starbucks app, reach out to our customer care line, or ask your Starbucks barista”. Business Insider shared that these fake deals have happened more than once. What makes customers and fans make these deals anyways? Back in 2018, the same Starbucks scam occurred, using the hashtag, #SHALLOWBUCKS. This hashtag was commonly used via social media, as multiple accounts shared that Starbucks is celebrating Lady Gaga’s Oscar win. If viewers and fans, posted a picture of them streaming the hit song, “Shallow”, they would receive a free drink from Starbucks. People took this scam further than it needed to be, creating social media accounts, posting and tweeting messages in which made it look like they came from Starbucks. On top of that, photoshopped pictures of the celebrities wearing the signature barista outfit were posted in order to promote this fake offer. Overall, fans and customers saw this as a way of promoting the artist and franchise, as well as their infatuation for both.
It's insane how this world functions. You can approach individuals through social media and guarantee them these things that you cannot even 100 percent guarantee. Yet, they run with it and trust you. It's so natural to make profit off of individuals and to get them to agree in accepting something. I feel awful for the individuals who fall for this trap, not realizing the consequences or suspicion. Be that as it may, it's human instinct to do. You hear that they can give you a brand new car and you transform into that image with dollar signs on your eyes. It's extraordinarily human and since us all are people it's simple for organizations and cruel people to keep on doing this.
This major situation with Starbucks has made me wonder why Starbucks doesn’t advertise? Despite the fact that Starbucks is a standout amongst the best organizations around the world, I have realized that I have never seen a Starbucks advertisement, commercially. Clearly, they carry out business ads, but not like other organizations like Dunkin' Donuts, there are not really any commercial ads promoting Starbucks. On the off chance that they don't promote as frequently, how are they getting such a vast number of customers? How has it become so popular? You see the signature mermaid logo and know precisely what it implies. So directly there is one key component to their promoting. However an franchise as huge and popular, must have some increasingly imaginative method for getting their item out there. One way they may do this is by having the baristas spell even the most basic of names wrong on purpose. You may have seen a few of pictures like this via Instagram, where people joke about the four additional vowels included by the ignorant barista. By misspelling names, they may trust that customers will immediately snap and post an image not only to be aware of their mistake, but for them to be aware of the product. In doing so, their item is getting more popular each time, just by an image of their logo. However, I think that the brand name "Starbucks" is so established and hard to miss, that their customers are exposed from an instinct of common knowledge and familiarity.
I really enjoyed your analysis on scammers and how they are using big companies to do so. I have noticed scammers through fake Youtuber's accounts saying things like "Click on me to get a free Iphone 8". It really has not occurred to me that people fall for these types of scams. I realize that it mostly kids who fall for these types of scams as they are young and impressionable, so it makes me sad that these adults will pray on kids naiveness to make money. I wonder how Starbucks is doing to combat these types of people. Also, I wonder if this is hurting their stocks at all.
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