Page 156 - The Starbucks Experience

Embrace Resistance

of resistance for businesses. Even when swift counteraction
is taken to set the record straight, one can never be certain
how many people were contaminated by rumors and false
information.
The Starbucks brand has occasionally borne the brunt of
such negative and false information. In 2004, when troops
were deployed in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Marine
Sergeant Howard Wright apparently heard a story from a
friend, who had heard it from yet another person. That
story prompted Sergeant Wright to fire off the following
e-mail:
“Please pass this along to anyone you know. This needs to
get out in the open. Recently Marines over in Iraq support-
ing this country . . . wrote to Starbucks because they wanted
to let them know how much they liked their coffee and try
to score some free coffee grounds. Starbucks wrote back 141
telling the Marines thanks for their support in their business,
but that they don’t support the war and anyone in it and that
they won’t send them the coffee. . . . We should not [buy] any
Starbucks products.”
Of course there was no such policy in existence at Star-
bucks, and there was no evidence in support of that wild
claim. At the time, the Starbucks leadership reaffirmed the
company policy:
“Starbucks has the deepest respect and admiration for U.S.
military personnel. We are extremely grateful to the men and
women who serve stateside or overseas. We sincerely appre-
ciate that they are willing to risk their lives to protect Amer-
icans and our values of freedom and democracy. While
Starbucks as a company cannot directly donate to military
personnel, many of our partners show their support by
donating coffee.”