Fantastic idea. Whatever it takes to get people out to vote!

Can we please serve the coffee in Tall cups that CLEARLY say "This coffee brought to you from the great ideas at mystarbucksidea.com"  LOL. Maybe a little sticker to throw on the existing cups. I want to get the word out about our heavenly site here! (j/k) ;-)

Thanks for the positive news Matt! I'm sure November 4th will bring many happy voters to Starbucks. :)  :)

great idea. I'll be stopping by my local starbucks after I vote!!

This is a great Idea guys. I just wish it included Mocha Frappe's since I am not a hot coffee kind of guy.

Great idea!!!!  I'll be sure that I stop by!

Nicely Done!  I plan to stop by.

voting is a good thing...and the free starbucks is icing on the cake....or, should I say the free starbucks is like the little red sprinkles that come on my triple shot extra hot peppermint mocha in season:) It just doesn't get any better than that!

Do you have a email piece I can send to my list, not everyone on twitter.  I love it and I will VOTE.

Thanks.

The Marketing Project

Now THIS is awesome!!  Thank you. :-D

Matt, I mentioned somewhere on this site but maybe you missed it.......

MSI has not frozen on me since the last update. THANK YOU!!!!

what's the music in the ad?

Wow, what a terrific community partner you are Starbucks!  I am impressed.  My husband (Bill Mac) sent you a super idea and you acted on it.  I am hearing all kinds of good buzz about it!  Does Bill get a free cup each week for his idea??

billmac...way to go! I think it's a great idea. Hopefully, everyone will hear about it soon.

Great Idea. Good work MSI team.

If anyone missed the ad last night on SNL, here it is. I think it was tastefully done, but slightly overdrawn. It started to loose my attention about 3 questions before they actually connected it to coffee.

www.youtube.com/watch

Matt as others have said great idea!

But what about us tea drinkers - can we get a tall size iced or hot tea?

Forgot to mention that when I was at SB this morning the partner there had absolutely no idea that this promo was being offered. She thought it a great idea though. How is it being communicated to the stores?

Purple1:

We were sent a notification about this promotion at the store level on Friday afternoon.

Great job MSI Team!  Thanks being in tune with our communitites.  It's too important to vote!  

SO... another good work to the Promo!  Much better than those free coffee cards promo!

THANK!

Dear Bold Coffee Lovers,

All stores have been instructed to brew our Morning Pick offering for the week, Thanksgiving Blend, ALL DAY LONG on November 4th. That's right, you get your choice of Pike Place Roast, Thanksgiving Blend, and Decaf Pike Place Roast from open till closing at any company-owned and participating licensed Starbucks stores.

Matt can we have an answer to offering a free tall iced or hot tea after voting in addition to the free coffee? Thanks.

IronChef, thats great news!!! I can't wait to try Thanksgiving Blend. :-D

Matt, the music in that ad is beautiful. Maybe you could have that played in all the SB????

Great idea, except your missing some very important people. The people who work the polls. My wife for one will be working all day to help you vote. She will not be able to take you up on your offer as your stores will be closed when she is released from her duties. The poll workers need to be thanked too for doing an incredible tiring job.

Too bad you couldn't do this for your Canadian customers when we voted 2 weeks ago.

What about the people that have voted by mail?

Great Idea!!!

It  would be cool, if the cups said  I Voted.

I VOTED BY ABSENTEE.  HOW DO I PROVE IT?

RubyCon - the information out there has been that it's an "honor system" - I think if you merely say "I voted" that will be good enough! You should still get your tall brewed coffee. :)

I'm looking forward to trying Thanksgiving Blend!

And I still want the cups to say "Have you voted lately at mystarbucksidea.com?"  I'm not joking. I want to get the message of MSI to more people - and this site has a voting system on it!

Steve1, you do NOT have to prove it.

Just say "I voted" and you will be taken at your word.  It's an "honor system."

Some states like Georgia have online voter status.  If you voted via absentee ballot, you could print off the status that confirms receipt of the ballot.  For Georgia the web site is sos.georgia.gov/.../PollLocator.aspx

Wow, I've been watching the attendee numbers for the Facebook event about this....It's literally going up anywhere from 10-40 people every second......

I have a Coffee Master black apron still in its wrapping. I've always set it aside for a "special" occasion. This is definitely going to be it.....

Is there a way to get some of that fabulous coffee to those wonderful pollworkers, who may not be able to get away to ask for that cuppa?  Most of the pollworkers I know show up at 7:00 and don't leave until everything is wrapped up, so it's normally a 15-16 hour day.  Not sure how this would work, only know that some pollworker friends of mine were sighing about how they'd love a cup of the coffee, but wouldn't be able to get away to get it.

They MUST have that song in the full version, it's going to take off like a rocket, and I think the composer will be well recognized after that. Great ad!

I'm Totally Voting now, (not like I wasn't planning too, but this seals the deal)

Thanks Starbucks!  I was obviously planning on voting anyway, but this was awesome of Starbucks to do.  I even made an announcement about it this morning in my meeting at work!  

Not only do we get to try the new bold coffees being offered we get to try one for free! Thank you!

Thanks!

I think this is a great idea. But I'm upset that this commercial is such a blatant ripoff of the Girl Effect video. http://www.girleffect.org/

BBDO should be ashamed of themselves. I don't believe this is Starbucks' fault and I am a regular customer. But the Girl Effect work is a very moving and important piece of media. Please visit that site if you want to be truly touched by something...

Wow, we were only given small coffees and were not allowed a choice of flavors.   That sucks, I would have loved to try the Thanksgiving blend.  And I think my husband would have as well.

I was SO excited to try Thanksgiving Blend today.........

Except they weren't brewing it. Instead it was Espresso Roast. Still a good coffee but TB would have been better.

I went to the Starbucks in my office building and was told that they weren't giving away coffee today.

Oh hey Matt!

Yeah I would have asked about it but my daughter isn't feeling well. I had to get it and go.  

I think I will to. LOL

I LOVE Sumatra..................prrrrrrrrrr. What's the percentage of Sumatra and the other bean in TB?

isound

These kinds of moving text ads have been around for a very long time and have been on the web since at least 2000. The girleffect was not the first or the best of the genre.

All I have to say is this sucks.  The Starbucks at our location at 11010 NE 8th Street in Bellevue, WA is not offering any free coffee.  I thought this applies to all Starbucks locations?

Xaneth, is that a liscensed location?

What's up with the possibility that this reward for voters "might violate state and federal laws because it specifically targets voters" as the Sacramento Journal is reporting?  

As I said on my blog covering this (friendswithtips.blogspot.com/.../free-starbucks-ben-jerrys-etc-for.html) no good deed goes unpunished!!

Nice idea, but, poorly done.  The non-company owned or freestanding stores (ie, in Target, grocery stores, hotels, etc.) are NOT honoring the free coffee.  This is a stain on the company reputation.

I tried to get my free cup this morning at the Target in Wesley Chapel, NC after voting.  Not only did they say they could not honor the deal...they could not made espresso drinks because their machine was broken.  This is sad, because it is a new location that has only been open a few months.  This is the third time we couldn't get a latte or machiato while shopping at this Target store.  

Starbucks really needed to include the franchisees in the promotion.  It would have generated a lot of collatoral sales at good profit margins.  Plus it would have attracted a few new customers.  Coffee drinkers tend to be very passionate.  Starbucks usually gets this.  Turning off potentially passionate people by excluding certain stores is not good for their guests or their shareholders...

Great idea Starbucks, BADLY EXECUTED.  I voted and promptly went to the nearest Starbucks, inside the local Target store.  We were told, "Because we are in Target, we don't do that."   Okay, so I went to the next nearest store, in a Harris Teeter grocery store, same story.  

If you are going to run something like this, please specify stand-alone stores only or, better yet, get your act together and include your partner agreements.  Duh!!!!

Today I had my first unpleasant experience at Starbucks. I went to the store on Parmer/McNeil - Austin, TX and while waiting for my drink, I over heard the young woman making my drink tell her co-worker that Obama is technically ineligible to run for president because he was born in Africa. I politely said, "Excuse me, I am sorry to interrupt, but he was born in Hawaii." As the young woman handed me my drink she said "I know a lot about this, I worked on the Ron Paul campaign. He was born in Africa." - I have no problem hearing staff criticize any of the candidates, but I was shocked to hear something so willfully ignorant.  I had to resist the urge to ask her if Obama was an A-Rab and a socialist as well - ugh,

Thank you very much for the free coffee on election day.  Most days I pay for my Starbucks brew and leave with it right away.  Today, it was free and I hung out and talked to a bunch of other voters who were enjoying the coffee and the new spirit of community.  Great idea!

WOO! What an amazing 7am-11:30am shift today! I was there, working the register, and witnessing first hand how excited customers were about this promotion!

There was mutual excitement. My eyes lit up and my voice squeeked "YEAH!" every time I took an order for a tall cup of coffee. In turn, my customers eyes lit up and their voices squeeked "THANKKKKKK YOU!!!" when I handed their cup of Thanksgiving Blend.

I work in one of the busiest stores in the company which meant logistics were a big focus going into the event. This morning when I walked in, I went over my game plan with my shift supervisor and food runner and strategized how we were going to ensure that coffee would always be available, no customer would have to wait, and people were able to smile as they went out to vote, go to work, or just absorb the excitement of the day.

It rocked!

Am I the only person who felt saddened that after witnessing Christmas become overly commercialized, our electoral process is next? That my vote was up for commercial sponsorship?

How about free refills everyday instead of some gimmick like free on election day.  

danhasch - free refills are part of the "registered card" benefits:  I don't think the election day free coffee was part of a "gimmick." I think it was part of the goodwill of Starbucks to just do something nice on an important day.  That's a very Starbuckian thing to do!

^ Oh weird - that was me up above at 8:1o pm.

Melody

So, Sbux,  is it true or not that you changed this idea to give *everyone* free coffee because it is illegal to offer someone something in exchange for voting? Not your fault if so, but state the truth not just "to make it easier".

This was a good idea but poorly executed.

I work in a licensed store that was asked by our corporate offices to participate, we were told that we wouldn't get many takers!!!! Huh> we gave away more than 500  cups out, without additional staffing or enough supplies to back up the draw on our supply  of cups and coffee! We have to order a week in advance and don't keep a huge backstock due to space. Next time give a bit of lead when "your lightbulbs" go on!!! Or save it for next time.

Last week we asked the following question: Which Ideas in Action post has been viewed the most? We then

I think starbucks should do a commercial, and in the commercial it would be a fast food restaurant(aka mickey d's) and teh commercial would show the restaurant just throwing all your food in a bag and serving you a smashed hamburger, and at the end the commercial will say; are these the people you want making your coffee?

-simon

This idea, communicated mostly thru the media and word of mouth, definately drove customers into our stores.  All I would ask is in the future to please give the stores more notice and more details of how it is being advertised.  We were SO SHORT on labor that day, not fun;0(

What has happened to my cranberry/apple muffins.   So very popular and now discontinued - please bring them back!!!