Starbucks answers activists on YouTube

By Dominic Jones

VIDEO sharing sites like YouTube look set to become a new front in the battles between big corporations and social activists.

As a medium, video can be highly convincing and effective, but high costs have historically limited its use by activists and companies. However, new online video editing and posting services have dramatically altered the economics, putting online video in reach of anyone with a video camera.

At the same time, video sharing and social media networks are providing activists with access to a potentially vast audience that they previously could only have reached through mainstream television coverage.

Oxfam tackles Starbucks on Ethiopia trademarks

An example of video sharing being employed by activists occurred recently when activists from Seattle’s Ethiopian community, local group Fair Trade Puget Sound, and Oxfam America demonstrated outside the Westlake Center Starbucks in Seattle to “protest against the company’s refusal to recognize the rights of Ethiopian coffee farmers.”

Oxfam says more than 89,000 people in 70 countries have joined its campaign by sending faxes to Starbucks CEO Jim Donald and signing a petition to support Ethiopia’s ownership of its coffee names, a move it says will boost payments to farmers who produce world-class coffee but live in poverty.

An Oxfam video crew filmed the protest and recorded interviews with Starbucks customers. The footage was incorporated into a short video and posted on Oxfam America’s website and on the YouTube website, where users can view, share or grab code to embed the Flash video on their own blogs or websites.

The 3-minute Flash video embedded below is the one produced by Oxfam America. It is has been distributed on a wide variety of sites and, according to YouTube, has been viewed more than 30,000 times as I post it here.

Click the play button > on the screen below to run the video without leaving this page

Starbucks Corp.’s response

Two days after Oxfam America posted its protest video on YouTube, Starbucks responded by posting its own video featuring Dub Hay, the company’s head of coffee, answering questions about the company’s position on the issue.

When I visited the Starbucks corporate website for this article, I noticed a prominent link on the homepage to a letter Hay wrote to the editor of the Seattle Post Intelligencer on the Ethiopia issue.

Starbucks also has a main section of its corporate website labeled Rumor Response. This page includes links to the company’s positions on breaking issues and rumors, including the Ethiopia trademark issue.

Here is the Starbucks video response to Oxfam America. YouTube says it has been viewed almost 24,000 times.

Click the play button > on the screen below to run the video without leaving this page

Companies should expect social activists, including shareholder activists, to increasingly incorporate social media sites and tactics into their campaigns. Starbucks has demonstrated that the company is listening and willing to engage in the conversation.

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