Starbucks' clever protest against the government shutdown

In the true spirit of America, corporations are using the government shutdown as a marketing opportunity. Furloughed workers, for example, can get a free roast chicken at Boston Market, free popcorn at AMC theaters, and even free sex toys from Vibrators.com. (The site's ad: "Do you have a little too much time on your hands and nothing to do?")

Starbucks, however, might have them all beat. Its current promotion doesn't just apply to federal employees. Instead, it's for anyone who is tired of Washington's "seemingly unending cycle of dysfunction and doubt" — so everyone, basically.

The company's #payitforward campaign works like this: Buy someone else a beverage at Starbucks, and you get a free tall coffee. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz called it a way for people to "support and connect with one another, even as we wait for our elected officials to do the same for our country."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

This is a brilliant move for several reasons. First, it doesn't cost Starbucks. Buying a coffee for someone else and then getting a free coffee is the same as buying yourself a coffee. Here is how Starbucks puts it:

Essentially, you get to buy a coffee and then feel good about it. Not only that, but the target of the company's "protest," Washington, has never been less popular. Here is the latest poll from AP-GfK on Congress' approval rating:

Notice the dramatic decline to the current approval rating of five percent for Congress. In fact, this is one of the least controversial political moves Starbucks has made, following its stand on open-carry gun laws and its ardent defense of gay marriage.

After those incidents, Starbucks faced a string of protests from conservative groups, although that didn't seem to hurt its bottom line. Now it gets the same press, but none of the blowback.

"No one is asking," points out Entrepreneur's Ray Hennessey, how this promotion "puts Speaker John Boehner and President Obama in the same room together." Instead, he writes, "the free-coffee promotion is precisely that: A promotion, and a potentially good one."