A Starbucks marketing stunt spiralled into mass boycotts in South Korea(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
A Starbucks marketing stunt spiralled into mass boycotts in South Korea
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/06/starbucks-south-korea-tank-day-promotion-blunder
4 comments
"Marketers chose the slogan after consulting an AI tool, looking for suggestions, Shinsegae Group said. It turned out some managers who approved the campaign never opened the email attachments showing the marketing material."
> “While unintentional, this should never have happened.
It was unintentional on the part of Starbucks at large. The CEO of Starbucks Korea intentionally chose to integrate anti-democratic references into the marketing [1]:
> Did a dumb American exec misunderstand what Tank meant? Nope! Starbucks Korea is owned by a Korean billionaire who supports the old regime.
> Every new tumbler is 503 ml. Random size, eh?
> A right wing talking point is that "activists" are exaggerating and "only 503 people" were killed on 5/18.
> The slogan for the Starbucks campaign is "Slam it on your desk!" Random, eh?
> On 5/18 a young man was tortured to death in police custody. The cop said "I just slammed my hand on the desk and he died."
[...]
> Every Western article about this is like "is it too unwoke to make a pun on a day of remembrance?" but that's not what this is, this is a billionaire announcing to the entire country "We should not be a democracy, and I'm glad for every person who died trying to make it one. Suck it."
[1] https://bsky.app/profile/ryanestrada.com/post/3mmi5yrbqps25
It was unintentional on the part of Starbucks at large. The CEO of Starbucks Korea intentionally chose to integrate anti-democratic references into the marketing [1]:
> Did a dumb American exec misunderstand what Tank meant? Nope! Starbucks Korea is owned by a Korean billionaire who supports the old regime.
> Every new tumbler is 503 ml. Random size, eh?
> A right wing talking point is that "activists" are exaggerating and "only 503 people" were killed on 5/18.
> The slogan for the Starbucks campaign is "Slam it on your desk!" Random, eh?
> On 5/18 a young man was tortured to death in police custody. The cop said "I just slammed my hand on the desk and he died."
[...]
> Every Western article about this is like "is it too unwoke to make a pun on a day of remembrance?" but that's not what this is, this is a billionaire announcing to the entire country "We should not be a democracy, and I'm glad for every person who died trying to make it one. Suck it."
[1] https://bsky.app/profile/ryanestrada.com/post/3mmi5yrbqps25
I might've misread the article, but wasn't it not the CEO who caused this, it was some marketers who chose the slogan and the branding, who then shipped it off to managers, who approved it without even looking at what they were approving?
You did not misread. I was wrong, and you are correct that the CEO has no confirmed involvement. I "reasoned" backward from "CEO was punished because of the marketing campaign" to "CEO approved the campaign".
Tangentially, I find it hard to believe that
> Shinsegae’s investigation found no evidence the Starbucks campaign was deliberate
(referring even to the marketers, who were placed on probation [1]) considering that a marketer who is capable of making an AI come up with slogans for a specific day of the year is also capable of asking why the AI chose that particular day.
[1] https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1...
Tangentially, I find it hard to believe that
> Shinsegae’s investigation found no evidence the Starbucks campaign was deliberate
(referring even to the marketers, who were placed on probation [1]) considering that a marketer who is capable of making an AI come up with slogans for a specific day of the year is also capable of asking why the AI chose that particular day.
[1] https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1...