coffee business strategies

You may have read my previous article regarding Starbucks Chain of Fools, the alleged outpouring of goodwill that is occurring at (only at) Starbucks drive through locations around the country.

We received a comment this morning from an anonymous supporter of Starbucks named “WhyTheHate” on this topic, as shown below:

I know it’s fun to be cynical and bash “Big Bad Starbcks”, but do a google search for “Starbucks pay it forward” and you’ll get multiple stories from all across the US dating back to 2005. Oh, I know, all of the people who started those lines were newspaper employees! Try this: Go to Starbucks, start a “Pay-it-forward” line, and return the next day to see if it panned out. Back up your theories with research. :-/

Again, an anonymous outpouring of support for big green — anonymous, that is, to anyone that does not see the IP address of this poster. Want to see where the message came from?

Me too!

A new comment on the post #116 “Starbucks Chain of Fools Promotion” is waiting for your approval

Author : WhyTheHate? (IP: 199.233.178.253 , sbuxhost204.starbucks.com)
E-mail : mentalosophy@hotmail.com
URL :
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=199.233.178.253

What a coincidence! He or she is sending the message from a Starbucks network.

So, “WhyTheHate?,” do you really want to know Why the Hate? Anonymously sending messages in favor of your own company under false pseudonyms is a form of deception; the intentional manipulation of information, presumably for financial gain.

Why did you not just come right out and admit that you work for the company and can verify that the events are unique and legitimate… perhaps adding that your PR department decided to contact the media and spread the news?

By taking the sleazy approach of withholding your true identity when making comments favorable to your company, the average reader can only assume that you also faked the “pay it forward” events… now, that’s something that the media should pay attention to.