Ode to the Red Cup

It's that time of year folks!! Halloween has just ended, November has commenced, and people have broken out the Christmas tunes (or in my case have upped the ante by publicly singing All I Want For Christmas Is You). I don't know about anyone else but every year I countdown to the day that Starbucks releases their annual holiday cups. For some reason, these festive red cups bring an unparalleled amount of joy into my life. If you're judging me for this statement, may I fondly suggest you go purchase a peppermint mocha and proceed to reevaluate. 

Last year's holiday cup was absolutely spectacular. But Starbucks has decided to blow away expectations and incorporate their loyal customers into the festivities. Yesterday, I anxiously got my paws around my first red cup of the season and was even more excited when I read the copy on the cup. As I sipped round one of my pumpkin spice latte, I read this "Our friends think of us as an odd couple, but we only think it's odd when we're apart. www.starbucks.com/share" WHAT BETTER WAY TO GET IN THE GIVING SEASON then to have your customers log onto a unique landing page all about your brand and the sharing and giving of the holiday season. Even better than the quotes on the cup are the "coffee cozys" that have "Stories are gifts. share" printed on them. It's sentiments like these that make me a sucker for the Christmas season.

http://www.starbucks.com/share/

Now even if I didn't have a heavy handed love affair with all things Starbucks, I would think this campaign tapped into what most consumers feel at the start of the holiday season. Even if by mid December you want to poke out the eyeballs of the every blown up Santa Claus storefront, the beginning of November finds most people breaking out Andy Williams Christmas carols with holiday fervor.

Starbucks has always had an interactive social media campaign that takes customer service to the next level. The MyStarbucks Idea campaign takes the best of online marketing and relationship building and creates a hub of online activity unique to the Starbucks brand. With the release of the red cup and the "share" campaign, Starbucks is taking the festivities beyond the usual Peppermint mochas, Gingerbread lattes and Eggnog lattes and creating a space where customers can share stories, interact via Facebook and learn more about what Starbucks is doing to make this holdiay special including "the 12 days of sharing." I think that in the future Starbucks will be one of the case studies to look to when  studying success stories about creating online conversations and building online customer relationships using new media.
As @LaurenB tweeted yesterday "When your customers are annually excited about the release of a red cardboard cup, you are probably doing a good job branding." And I couldn't agree more!


Oh and has anyone else heard about the new Trenta size? This sounds to good to be true!