Starbucks has hoped on the notion of promoting "change" as well. On inauguration day, Starbucks launched their I'm In program. The tagline You and Starbucks: It's Bigger than Coffee proudly promotes their grass routes effort in which you pledge 5 hours to get involved in your community and they'll give you a free Tall brewed coffee. (A "tall" is the same thing as a small for all you non-starbucksians out there). If you're interested, the campaign only lasts 5 days, so you've got 3 days to get yourselves to Starbucks and pledge to do some good in the world. It's a great promotion, but I feel like they could have possibly targetted the younger members of the communities by offering perhaps, a tall beverage of their choice. I mean what 16 year old girl do you know that goes to Starbucks and orders a tall black coffee? Come on. You know they're ordering tall half-caf, double soy sugar free carmel macchiatos. (I don't even know if that exists...) I know starbucks wants to save money, but give us a little bit more of a reason to get involved. Personally, if when I went in this morning and ordered my Venti Carmel Macchiato, they said to me, "Volunteer 5 hours and we'll give you this for free," I probably would have done it.

They're attempting to make an eco-friendly effort as I noticed stylish new green tumblers that boasted they were produced from 28% post consumer recycled materials. A. They're still plastic. B. If Starbucks really wanted to make a recycling difference, they might consider recycling ALL those plastic gallon sized milk containers that they use daily. Instead they just toss them in the garbage. I doubt if they gave out eco-friendly promotional products it would even make a difference considering how much waste they produce.

This kind of turned into an anti-Starbucks blog, but I do heart the Starbucks. I'm actually debating going to get another Venti Caramel Machiatto right now... 

ETA: I'm a slave to the bean. But this is one heck of a delicious beverage.