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Tracking Rumors: Starbucks Can’t Stop the Chatter But They Can Impact the Discussion

The beauty about the Internet is that helpful information can be shared so quickly and easily and the nightmare of the Internet is that bad information is often shared even faster. Last night I was reading blog posts about Hurricane Katrina from people like Ernie the Attorney who were stuck in the middle of the storm and random posts by people all over the country who were sharing tidbits of stories about rescues, lost animals and even computerless orphans going through withdrawal. It’s hard to know what was true and what wasn’t but I wanted to get a sense of what real people thought about the hurricane rather than the news reporters.

I also spent some time seeing if I could dig up some tidbits on Iraq to get some insight on what my nephew, a U.S. Marine, might be experiencing at the moment. This is a daily routine for me when he is deployed. About once per week, I also visit the family support group site for my nephew’s marine helicopter unit to see if there are any new messages or photos from other family members or occasionally from the commander. I was surprised to see that the main post was about the Starbucks hoax that has been spreading around since May 2004. I thought that rumor had been debunked by now but it showed up last week on the group message board and outraged many already stressed marine spouses and family members from across the US.

Fortunately for Starbucks, the webmaster investigated the post that claimed that Starbucks refused to send coffee to the marines in Iraq because they were against the war and found that it was not true.This situation once again underscores the need for companies to constantly monitor discussions about their brands in order to diffuse potentially damaging situations. I applaud the webmaster of the site for investigating the story on her own time (this is a volunteer site) and communicating with Starbucks to find out the truth. But not every company is going to have the good fortune to be contacted by concerned webmasters and bloggers. In most cases, negative comments about brands get spread quickly on hearsay just like the original complaint against Starbucks was.

Posted by Julie Woods on August 30, 2005 at 12:34 PM | Email this post Permalink

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