Coverage: Starbucks and social change

For a major corporation, Starbucks is certainly in the middle of the race debate. Employees have been writing “Race Together” on cups, but now they’re being asked to stop.

The New York Times story by Ravi Somaiya had these details about the injunction:

Howard D. Schultz, the chief executive of Starbucks, said in a letter to employees on Sunday that baristas would no longer be encouraged to write the phrase “Race Together” on customers’ coffee cups, drawing to a close a widely derided component of the company’s plan to promote a discussion on racial issues.

“While there has been criticism of the initiative — and I know this hasn’t been easy for any of you — let me assure you that we didn’t expect universal praise,” Mr. Schultz wrote.

Having baristas write on customers’ cups, Mr. Schultz wrote, “which was always just the catalyst for a much broader and longer-term conversation — will be completed as originally planned today, March 22.”

That end date had not previously been mentioned publicly, including during Mr. Schultz’s discussion of the initiative at the company’s annual shareholders meeting last week, but a company spokeswoman, Laurel Harper, said employees had been told about it.

Asked whether Starbucks was reacting to criticism, Ms. Harper said, “That is not true at all. When we initially began the Race Together initiative, what we wanted to do is spark the conversation, because we believe that is the first step in a complicated issue.”

The Bloomberg story by Renee Dudley had this background about the campaign:

The Seattle-based company’s leadership team visited almost 2,000 employees in St. Louis, Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York over the past three months to discuss racial issues.

Starbucks asked its baristas in those cities to write “Race Together” on customers’ cups, a move that was intended to spread across the U.S. The initiative generated mockery and criticism on Twitter on Tuesday, prompting Corey duBrowa, a communications executive at the company, to delete his Twitter account. It had been reinstated by Sunday.

Starbucks has more than 20,000 stores worldwide and is planning to open a net of 300 stores in the U.S. in fiscal 2015, including some in urban neighborhoods, a spokeswoman said in a statement today without elaborating. Starbucks doesn’t have a store in Ferguson, according to its website, which shows the closest is inside a Target store in neighboring Jennings, Missouri.

Candice Choi and Tom Krisher wrote for The Associated Press (via ABC News) that the campaign had come under criticism:

The cups were “just the catalyst” for a larger conversation, and Starbucks will still hold forum discussions, co-produce special sections in USA TODAY and put more stores in minority communities as part of the Race Together initiative, according to a company memo from CEO Howard Schultz said.

The campaign has been criticized as opportunistic and inappropriate, coming in the wake of racially charged events such as national protests over police killings of black males. Others questioned whether Starbucks workers could spark productive conversations about race while serving drinks.

Phil Wahba wrote for Fortune that some wondered if this was a good way to engage the public:

Many commentators in the media and members of the public mocked the program via Twitter and Facebook, not always politely wondering whether this was the best way to debate a sensitive issue — and questioning whether this would slow service inside Starbucks’ restaurants.

The initiative followed several months of consultations with employees that started in December, as a result of protests boiling over in several U.S. cities after grand juries declined to indict white police officers in the killings of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and 43-year-old Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y.

Schultz had met with almost 2,000 Starbucks employees since then in cities hit most directly by racial tension and anti-police brutality protests, including Oakland, St. Louis, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, plus Seattle, where Starbucks is based.

Aware of what a powder keg the issue of race is, Starbucks baristas were under no obligation to engage with customers on the topic.

The NPR Story by Sam Sanders that Starbucks isn’t planning to totally stop the campaign:

The company says a number of Race Together activities will still take place over the next few months, including open forums and special sections in USA Today. Starbucks is also committing to hire 10,000 disadvantaged youth over the next three years and open new stores in communities with large minority populations.

Reporting on the large amount of criticism the Race Together Initiative received since it was launched last week, NPR’s Karen Grigsby Bates said, “Some people think it’s just a naked marketing ploy, kind of a catalyst for free advertising … Other people think it was well-intentioned but really poorly executed.” And our Code Switch blog noted that some people thought the campaign was unfair to Starbucks employees, who could face possibly awkward or offensive reactions.

But in that memo Schultz sent to Starbucks employees, he seemed to double down on the campaign. “While there has been criticism of the initiative — and I know this hasn’t been easy for any of you — let me assure you that we didn’t expect universal praise,” he wrote. “We leaned in because we believed that starting this dialogue is what matters most. We are learning a lot.”

He continued, “An issue as tough as racial and ethnic inequality requires risk-taking and tough-minded action. And let me reassure you that our conviction and commitment to the notion of equality and opportunity for all has never been stronger.”

It is interesting for a brand to take up such a controversial issue. Was it a marketing stunt? I doubt we’ll ever know, but this is likely a signal for how people will start talking about issues and how brands will be closer to the center of that conversation.