What strikes me is that this starts out with, “we’re gonna tell our own story … we’re gonna take this back to where it really is …” etc., theme of authenticity, showing the original Starbucks store, and this is all centered around a great new ad campaign …

To make the ad campaign itself seem more “authentic,” real Starbucks employees get to “have their say” about it – “what do you like about this?”

They then show the ads. And what are these ads? A lot of slogans. Nice slogans, like “each cup is served with love,” and “if it’s not right the first time, we’ll make it right, & if it’s not right then, make sure you’re in a Starbucks.” Good as far as slogans go. But not really revealing anything unique about Starbucks – I’m sure the many other coffeehouses would claim the same.

I think this shows me how “social media” is now somehow identified with “grassroots” and “reaching out,” but that the message really hasn’t changed. They may do something “innovative” like create a facebook app, or start advertising in social media. But at the heart of it – the message – it’s the same. It’s just an extra “gloss” and attempt at making an already-existing message somehow seem more “real.”

Odd as well: it almost sounds like a group of Christians sitting around talking about the gospel. At first I thought that this was going to be some kind of Christian spoof on Starbucks, with a type of moral lesson at the end.