Starbucks has more than 2,000 stores in South Korea, including one overlooking a North Korean village, one in a century-old traditional street market and one on the 99th floor of a glass skyscraper. On Monday, all of those stores closed early and unprecedentedly.
But closing stores at 3 p.m. doesn’t mean the brand’s roughly 24,000 baristas, supervisors and company employees get extra rest time. They must all receive historical awareness and cultural sensitivity training. This is crisis PR for a marketing disaster.
Last month, Starbucks launched a new series of tumblers called "Tank Day." The marketing campaign coincides with the anniversary of the 1980 massacre when South Korea was under a military dictatorship and the government used tanks to suppress pro-democracy demonstrators in the southern city of Gwangju.
Starbucks' promotion immediately triggered a strong backlash. Less than 18 months ago, South Korea had just experienced a martial law crisis, so the criticism was extremely fierce. Shinsegae Group, the chaebol that owns Starbucks Korea, pulled the advertisement, issued an apology, and fired the CEO of Starbucks Korea. Later, the group said that employees used artificial intelligence to develop promotional copy without understanding its background. Monday's training was a remedy for that.
Lee Jong-woo, a marketing professor at South Seoul National University, said: "By taking measures to close stores to train all employees, Starbucks is trying to show consumers and the public its determination and sincerity to change. In the final analysis, the core purpose is to repair the damaged brand image."
Since last week, Starbucks has posted signs shortening its operating hours. At around 2:40 pm on Monday, at a Starbucks store in Seoul Station, a busy transportation hub, baristas began informing customers that the store was closing early. 10 minutes later, the store employees began to pull down the rolling shutter door and only accepted take-out orders. At 2:58 p.m., they announced they were closing.
Most customers seemed surprised. Gao Zhenshan, a 65-year-old tourist from Gumi City, was drinking an iced American coffee from a to-go cup. She said: "I have never heard of 'Tank Day' and I didn't know they would close."
According to a Starbucks spokesperson, inside the store, employees were arranged to watch a video lecture by two professors from Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul.
"In many cases, these problems arise because companies fail to correctly understand society, social sensitivities, historical events, collective memories or pain points. Ultimately, it depends on whether companies can correctly interpret society," said Koo Jung-woo, a sociology professor who spoke at the cultural sensitivity training section.
Oh Je-yeon, who teaches Korean modern history, gave a lecture on major events since the 1950s in the historical awareness training section. He declined to comment.
But Starbucks isn't out of the woods yet. The police are investigating executives of Shinsegae Group, accusing them of defamation, insulting the families of victims of the Gwangju Massacre, and violating the "518 Special Law on the Democratic Movement."
