Starbucks' Goof in Ireland Suggests It Needs to Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

Communicators have to know where the skeletons are hidden before delivering messages to their stakeholders. But how can they miss history? Nevertheless, they do.

"Give Ireland back to the Irish

Don't make them have to take it away

Give Ireland back to the Irish

Make Ireland Irish today

"Great Britain you are tremendous

And nobody knows like me

But really what are you doin'

In the land across the sea

"Tell me how would you like it

If on your way to work
You were stopped by Irish soldiers
Would you lie down do nothing
Would you give in, or go berserk"
     (Paul McCartney)

I was too young or preoccupied to remember much about the fighting in Northern Ireland in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. But I do remember the ongoing violence. The struggle was over whether Northern Ireland would remain part of the United Kingdom. "More than 3,400 people were killed in more than 30 years of conflict. The Good Friday Agreement, signed in 1998, tried to find a way to bring peace to the  region."  (http://www.ehow.com/facts_7380365_ireland_britain-conflict.html)

The violence didn't exactly start in the '60s. "Conflict has existed, on different scales and with differing intensities, between Ireland and Britain for more than eight centuries.... In the 1600s thousands of English and Scottish settlers were brought to Ireland by British landowners. They displaced Irish Catholics which led to violent conflict."

This is hardly a skeleton in a closet; it's world history. Then how do we explain the tweet sent by Starbucks to its Irish followers?

"The fractious history between England and Ireland should be well known by anyone in either of those countries ... but almost certainly known by an international corporation that’s hoping to use social media to ‘engage’ their consumers. To ask their Irish followers why they’re proud to be British either betrays the fact that Starbucks isn’t running a separate Twitter campaign with a localised approach, or that they’re ignorant of the country in which they’re marketing. Neither (is) good." (http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/starbucks-ireland-caught-out-in-twitter-scandal/)

Two days later the furor has died down but hasn't gone away. Seattle-based Starbucks offered a weak apology via Twitter, an appropriate medium because that's where the gaffe took place. "We erroneously posted to our Irish Twitter page meaning to the to the UK only. Customers in Ireland: We're sorry."

(http://global.christianpost.com/news/starbucks-tweet-sparks-outrage-with-irish-customers-76255/)

All this is to say that in international communications (And let's face it: all of it is international communications.) we need to be aware of customs and history. It's impossible not to offend someone with just about anything we write and say. But certainly posting a British pride message on an Irish social site is -- well, it's just plain unAmerican.