Starbucks And Their Save The World Marketing Scam
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed” ~Mahatma Gandhi
Hey Bono, Thanks Chap for Helping us exploit Africa's AIDS crisis for profit!
During a recent trip to my local Starbucks, I noticed a sign on the bulletin board that says Starbucks has helped provide 6,000,000 days of medicine for people with AIDS in Africa. Now don’t get me wrong, I love coffee and I love people who try to save the world. And at first glance, it appears Starbucks is doing both. And in a way they are – kinda.
Six million days of medication sounds like a huge number – until you start crunching the numbers. It cost $140 per person for 365 days worth of AIDS medication.[*] This means that the mighty coffee juggernaut that has revenues that exceed $1 trillion per year gave $2.3 million to the Global Aids Fund. This still seems like a lot of money, but let’s put the amount in perspective. Divide the $2.3 million by Starbucks’ 16,635 locations [*] and the days in a year and you’ll find your local Starbucks gives about 38 cents a day to help AIDS in Africa. That’s not even the price of a regular coffee, let alone one of their pricey lattes. Go in to your local Starbucks and look at the Product (RED) cups and fair trade coffees they are peddling in the name of AIDS research. The pricey insulated cup costs $16 of which Starbucks will donate $1 to the Global AIDS fund. That’s not even 10 percent. How much does Starbucks make off this cup, which I might add costs more then all the other cups of the same design? Now I am not the type of person who paints companies that make a profit out to be the villains. I am simply saying if a company is going to use poor Africans with AIDS to pull on the heart strings of Americans to buy overpriced products, the company should be giving a significant amount to the cause. Six percent is a ridiculously low number. I feel Starbucks is essentially exploiting people with AIDS in African to make a profit – really despicable when you think about it. Bono summed this whole scam up best in a speech he gave last October at a Starbucks manager meeting. He said, “This is not charity. This is commerce.” [*]
So Howard Schultz can do all the photo opps in Rwanda he wants, I am still not buying this insincere attempt at keeping the Starbucks corporate image squeaky clean.[*] This really isn’t anything new for Starbucks, either. It has always been an expert in giving the impression it cares. Brilliant if you think about it. How else do you not look like a greedy douche bag for selling $4 lattes to America’s yuppies? Schultz likes to tell sad stories of growing up with a father that worked himself to death and only make 20K a year, which is suppose to give the impression Howard Schultz and his $1.3 million a year salary is really just like you – only he can pay his bills and take a few years off from work. Give me a break. The Starbucks marketing people love to brag how they offer health insurance to all their employees, but they conveniently leave out the many loop holes their employees now must jump through in order to get and keep their health insurance. Everyone is quick to call out the evil empire that is Wal-Mart for only giving health insurance to 47 percent of their 1.3 million U.S. employees. [*] Most people don’t even realize this actually is 5 percent better than the supposed employee-friendly Starbucks, which only give health insurance to 42 percent of its 127,000 employees. [*]
Published in Signal - December 16th
Starbucks is also a huge union busting company, bullying any employees who even give off the scent of unionization. [*] Starbucks even went so far as to not hire any potential employee who previously worked for a union. They even fired a HR person who wouldn’t follow this illegal policy. But in America, perception is more important than reality. So in 2007, Howard Schultz received the “First Magazine Award For Responsible Capitalism.” [*] What’s next? Bernie Madoff getting an “Integrity in Business” award?
I didn’t write all this to smear Starbucks or call for a boycott because frankly I am one of those yuppies who likes his convenient $4 coffees available on every street corner. I am an addict and fully admit it. I try to go to Peet’s coffee when I am near one, but they are few and far between, so Starbucks will usually earn my $4 latte purchase. I only wrote this to call some attention to Starbucks’ exploitation of world crisis for profit. Selling an over priced AIDS product and only throwing a few pennies to the actually cause just seems wrong. Come on Howard Schultz, where is the soul you claim to have?
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” ~Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
Clip from Brave New Films, Campaign exposing the Truth about Starbucks
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This is kind of like my company, making it a contest for us to donate $200 to win a pizza party (shouldn’t they just donate the money, instead of rewarding top stores?).
In the end, these billion dollar companies only care about one thing: PROFIT.
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