Starbucks launches @tweetacoffee scheme to encourage ‘spontaneous giving’
Starbucks has today unveiled a new scheme in the US with Twitter, which allows users to tweet a $5 digital egift voucher to a friend.
Set to run until 6 November, the first 100,000 customers who tweet a coffee using a Visa card will also receive a $5 Starbucks Card egift for themselves, courtesy of Visa and Starbucks.
“What's so exciting about extending our egifitng platform to Twitter is the open and real time nature of the platform. Tweet-a-coffee allows us to do something quite different in egifting in that people can now give the gift of Starbucks to anyone on Twitter in the moment. This can be between the closest of friends, the most distant of colleagues, or even between people who have not even had the chance to meet yet in person, but have connected in some way on Twitter,” said Adam Brotman, chief digital officer, Starbucks. “We love the possibilities that the Twitter community can unlock to share acts of kindness with one another. Tweet-a-coffee is a key next step as we innovate our social digital gifting offering.”
The scheme allows Starbucks users to sync their account for the coffee shop to their Twitter account, and looks to allow customers to engage with one another online to gift a Starbucks beverage spontaneously and respond proactively with gestures of encouragement, kindness on and ‘just because’.
“Starbucks is really breaking ground here,” said Joel Lunenfeld, vice president of brand strategy at Twitter. “Shared experiences, such as a television show, a sporting event, or someone sharing a gift, are at the heart of the Twitter experience. It's also central to what it means to be a modern brand.”
The voucher can be redeemed by printing out the egift, showing it directly on their mobile device, or by loading it to their Starbucks mobile app.