Cheers to Starbucks

For the holiday season, Starbucks is spreading good cheer and carrying out a viral marketing campaign at the same time. According to Womnibus Weekly #2.13, they are giving out small gifts to customers, such as a bus pass, movie pass and only asking that in return, the recipient do a good deed for someone. When the good deed is done, the person on the receiving end gets a “cheer pass” which is numbered. They are encouraged to go to Starbucks’ “It’s Red Again” website and write about the good deed they received or a holiday tradition.

Starbucks says that this is a campaign to show appreciation to their customers, and "to inspire customers to pass along the holiday tradition of kindness." Around a half million “cheer passes” are being given out. This definitely seems like a good way to create buzz and positive attitudes toward Starbucks. It will be interesting to see if “cheer pass” recipients actually post on the site enabling the “good cheer” and success of the marketing campaign to be tracked.

In any event, doing a good deed for someone and spreading holiday cheer, can never be encouraged too much or carried out too often - - any time of the year!