This morning I was delighted to be presented with something noteworthy to write about. Metro, Toronto's daily commuter paper, had a double-wrap cover, with one of the pages being an onion-skin/vellum type 'see through' material, revealing the Starbucks logo below.Why?
Yes it's moderately clever, but what you gained by getting my attention, you lost by being so completely wasteful. You also presented no call to action or value for me. No line about the new candy-cane crack-a-chino, or even the Campaign (RED) that they were actually promoting, or what that's all about... No, this was blatant awareness marketing, and frankly, if you're not aware of Starbucks in Toronto, you're in a coma.
How about a coupon? "Use this coupon and $1 of this over-priced coffee will go to charity". There is also a huge disconnect for me between Campaign (RED) and fighting AIDS. Starbucks doesn't want to talk about AIDS, so they talk about (RED) but at some point, you have to think about millions of people dying to make the marketing work?