After a video of police unjustifiably removing 2 black men from a Starbucks went viral last week, CEO Kevin Johnson declared all of the company’s American stores will close on the afternoon of May 29 for “racial-bias education” training.
This social media firestorm brewed faster than a Venti:
- Thurs. 4/12: Video of forced removal posted
- Fri. 4/13: Starbucks responds to #boycottstarbucks
- Sat. 4/14: Starbucks posts apology on Twitter
- Mon. 4/16: Starbucks CEO meets with victims and mayor
- Tues. 4/17: Starbucks announces nationwide racial bias training
It’s a testament to the power of accountability on social media
To recap, a 45-second video caused the CEO of a Fortune 500 company to drop what he was doing, fly across the country to do damage control, and order a complete shutdown of operations, all in a matter of days.
Now, Starbucks will pay a steep price to restore its image — based on 2017 revenue, closing their 8,222 company stores for an afternoon will cost them over $16.7m — on top of the cost of training 175k employees in racial-bias prevention.