Like every year, Starbucks launched its festive campaign this year too, but the campaign stumbled and created quite a buzz on social media. Each year, Starbucks brings a uniquely designed red holiday cups. From a winking snowman to hand-drawn reindeer, the design of the red cup always signifies holiday and festive season. This year, instead of placing any symbol, the coffee company opted for a rather simplistic design and did not imprint any symbol on it.<\/p>\n
Shocked by the lack of an overt holiday season iconography, some Christians expressed their rage on social media and claimed that the company intentionally chose not to put any icons because the organization is against Christianity. The series of tweets and comments soon turned into a furore.<\/p>\n
Indeed branding is important in this decade<\/strong><\/a> and each and every promotional stunt to spread the name about your brand should be crafted carefully. In this edition of Creative Branding, we are evaluating how sensible this campaign was from the creative branding perspectives. To shed light on this topic, we are including two professionals in our panel to present their point of views.<\/p>\n Today our 2 panelists will be taking a look at Starbucks\u2019s recent Red Cup debacle and how it has stirred conversation on social media. The holiday themed cup that was supposed to show passion and celebration for the forthcoming Christmas and New Year has turned into a controversy that is apparently going nowhere.<\/p>\n John Brownlee regard this new cup of Starbucks as simple and clean design. He is of the opinion that:<\/p>\n \u201cI love the latest red holiday cups by Starbucks. I love these cups because in my opinion the design of this cup makes a statement. No doubt that these are Christmas cup, but Christmas doesn\u2019t mean buntings and baubles. The design for the Christmas can be a little classy, simplistic and unpresumptuous that can serve as an analog to the chaos of the season. Throughout the Christmas season, we get to see a wide variety of glitzy, lurid and flashy designs that remain ubiquitous. The new festival cups by Starbucks strongly suggest everything festive without being too loud. This design declares the commencement of the festive season in the most simplistic and straightforward way. In the pool of brands, where every brand is trying to catch consumers\u2019 attention with similar designs, these red cups reflect unique and different design. With the 2015 red holiday cups, Starbucks recognized there are subtler ways to celebrate Christmas than spreading spangles all over everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Similar to John Brownlee, Paulina Vargas also thinks that the latest campaign by Starbucks is a perfect epitome of simplistic design and signals that the trend of simple and clean design is going to stay for the time to come. She asserted that:<\/p>\n \u201cStarbucks\u2019 new red holiday cups stirred a lot of controversy. The debate and rage became so fierce that a campaign with hashtag #ItsJustACup has been started. From the design perspective, it can be said that this is one of the largest protests that I have seen against minimal and simple design. With the passage of time, we have seen a continuation of the adaptation of flat design dating back to Starbucks\u2019 logo redesign. This progression toward minimalism makes more sense when considering this latest holiday red cups design. Flat and simple design have been huge over the past few years and this latest designs of red cups also suggests that the trend of flat and simple design is going to be continued for quite some time.\u201d<\/p>\n #RedCups<\/a> What if I said you can choose NOT to be offended? #ItsJustACup<\/a> #ItsNotPersecution<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/two2J96BNG<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Right2Liberty (@Right2Liberty) November 9, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I can’t believe people are upset about the plainness of the @Starbucks<\/a> #RedCups<\/a>. What are we going to be offended by next? #itsjustacup<\/a> #smh<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Jeff Kingman (@JeffKingman) November 8, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n SERIOUSLY.. people are offended because @Starbucks<\/a> chose a plain red cup for the holidays? It’s cute and festive! #itsjustacup<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Christine Matli (@ChristineMatli) November 8, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Seriously?Minimalism and ombr\u00e9 are very popular and a company like @Starbucks<\/a> thrives on pop culture people need to calm down #itsjustacup<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Kristin Leeson (@KristinLeeson) November 8, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I fixed the controversial Starbucks “Christmas” cup. #merrychristmasstarbucks<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/kCOIPyb9mU<\/a><\/p>\n\n
![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.designmantic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/John-Brownlee.jpg\" "\\"John")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Paulina](\"https:\/\/www.designmantic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Paulina-Vargas.jpg\" "\\"Paulina")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Cheeses](\"https:\/\/www.designmantic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Cheeses-Christ.jpg\" "\\"Cheeses")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Trend of Simplistic Design<\/h2>\n
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