There’s a tussle going on as it relates to the branding of coffees from Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government wants to trademark it’s country's best-known coffee varietals of Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, and Hararr. The government believes, by branding theses varietals as trademarked Ethiopian coffees, they will be able to command higher wholesale prices resulting in improving the living/working conditions of the poorest coffee farmers in Ethiopia. Fair enough.
Starbucks has been accused of blocking this trademark application. Starbucks denies this accusation but the company has gone on record as saying that geographically-based trademarks may not be the best way to help coffee farmers generate higher wholesale value for their crops.
I’m not knowledgeable enough on this matter to take a stand either way. I’ll let much smarter and much informed people take a stand. But as a former long-time Starbucks marketer, I am impressed and intrigued with one way Starbucks is responding to the matter.
On December 20th, Starbucks posted a 1:47 video response on YouTube from Dub Hay, Starbucks senior vice president of Coffee and Global Procurement. I’m impressed with Starbucks being open enough to use YouTube as a channel to distribute a rebuttal to accusations levied against them. (I’m sure the Starbucks legal team challenged them all the way and most likely advised them against posting the video rebuttal.) And, I’m intrigued with the response in that the video is very low-key … just a talking head with some bumper graphics.
Again, I’m not taking sides on the matter. However, I applaud Starbucks for going beyond issuing a staid press release and instead, releasing a video statement. Funny how leading edge companies aren’t afraid to do leading edge things, eh?
Starbucks Video Response to the Ethiopian Trademark Matter
RSS Readers … click here to watch the video.
>> Big-ups to P-Dub at the Idea Sandbox for the heads-up.
From the start, Starbucks denied they were behind the NCA's rejection of the proposal. This video is basically a confession that they were lying through their teeth about that.
Posted by: Greg Sherwin | December 21, 2006 at 08:51 PM
Greg, let’s try to separate the issues from the tactics. Is a video, like what SBUX did, an effective and unexpected way for a $7B+ company to respond such accusations? I think so. You?
Posted by: johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy) | December 21, 2006 at 09:00 PM
It took some time, but it seems there is a solution:
A Sidamo Celebration and Fabulous Worship
"Sidamo Prayer Campaign" celebrates the defeat of the Starbucks Ethiopian trademark issue with a new gospel song and hot sermon - at Starbucks
Posted by: Daily News | February 28, 2007 at 11:17 PM