Starbucks made a major mistake last week when they emailed a coupon for a free ice coffee to employees and told them to share it with friends and family members. As you might expect (and starbucks should have), the email went viral and was quickly sent beyond the original employees. Starbucks was surprised, as if the idea of email actually being forwarded was a new concept. One can only hope that the marketing team wasn't involved.
After the email went super-viral, Starbuck canceled the promotion, saying the redistribution had resulted in the offer's being modified beyond its intent. I'd like to know how successful - although that's probably not the word Starbuck's would use - it was. In any case, the first mistake was sending the promo. The bigger mistake was yanking it.
Caribou Coffee, a smaller chain looking for market share, quickly took advantage of Starbuck's short-sightedness and said it would honor the coupon that Starbucks had pulled. They put a stipulation on it - which Starbucks didn't do - saying they'd accept the coupon this coming Friday only, between noon and closing. The company also said it would provide a free-drink offer to its email subscribers - never leave your base out of a good deal.
This is a major PR coup for Caribou. It was covered by major press outlets - as was Starbuck's mistake. The PR alone will pay for the free drinks that Caribou will serve. The question is, why didn't Starbucks imagine this would happen? Why didn't they eat the mistake instead of providing an opening for the competition?
Email marketers spend their days thinking about ways to turn a campaign into a viral success. Obviously, offerring a free product is a pretty good start. That might not have been Starbucks intent, but it should have been forseen and accepted once the deal was done.
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