14 DAY TRIAL // Social media is firing back at major businesses again and this time its Stabucks' turn to take the heat. The coffee shop giant wanted to use the power of twitter in a new multi-million dollar campaign. Filmmaker and liberal activist Robert Greenwald however saw this as an opportunity to promote his latest documentary criticizing Starbucks' unfair labor practices and union busting.
Starbucks launched the campaign a week ago, when they had advertising posters set up in six major US cities and had people hunt them down and take photos of themselves in front of them. The challenge was to be the first to post a photo on twitter using predetermined hashtags. Robert Greenwald heard about the campaign the same day he put up on YouTube a mini-documentary featuring interviews with Starbucks employees criticizing the company for its unfair labor practices and the fact that it had made it difficult for them to organize themselves in a union.
On a blog post over at Brave New Films, the company Greenwald founded, he encouraged people to take photos of themselves in front of Starbucks stores with signs criticizing the company's practices. Then they were to post those photos on twitter using the same hashtags Starbucks had created for its campaign #top3percent and #starbucks. Many responded to the calling and soon dozens of photos started to pop up on Twitter. The initiative seems to have been a success as the YouTube video has almost 50,000 views at this point. Greenwald also plans to continue his campaign though he would not reveal his plans.
This really speaks about the power of social media and the troubles large companies have had trying to harness it. “Well it says that democracy is a wonderful thing, and that we should be very happy with it,” Greenwald said. ”I think that the corporations will learn very quickly that if they want to function in a social marketing arena, then they’re going to have to change some of their practices or else they’ll have to get out.”