Starbucks was able to leverage serious traction from its latest guerrilla-marketing stunt. Advertising Age reports today that the coffee chain’s last-minute Election Day promotion, offering free coffee to customers who voted or just asked for it, brought the brand some of its best publicity in quite a while.
The company declined to comment on how many cups were given away or how much was spent, but industry experts and former Starbucks insiders place the cost of the minimal ad campaign and the product giveaway at under $1 million—a small price to pay for a chunk of coverage on a day when at least 71 million Americans tune into the news. The initiative prompted the chain's positive buzz rating to more than double from 25 percent to 51 percent, according to Brand Index.
Execution of the promotion only entailed one commercial spot that ran during the Saturday Night Live election special, as well as online banner ads and minimal in-store signage. It took the company’s new advertising agency, BBDO, less than a week to plan, which one executive credits with the campaign’s success. "It's probably more likely to get done that way," the exec posited. "Because Starbucks is such a consensus-making decision environment, the more time it has to sit around, the greater the chance it won't get done."
