Last month on StarbucksStore.com, Starbucks made available a limited number of tote bags produced from a Starbucks billboard. Unfortunately the actual link for the tote bag no longer works. I saw a tweet from one of my favorite twitter profiles (@StarbucksCard) which caught my attention: 300 bags were produced from the billboard. The photo on the StarbucksStore.com website showed a multicolored bag. The tweet also had an image of the bag. Have a look:
Don’t get me wrong. I think this is a brilliant idea for a Starbucks tote bag. It is just that with this particular billboard that Starbucks chose to use, invariably a number of people will receive all white tote bags. I do like my bag, but the solid white ones aren’t quite as fun as the multi-colored bags. The tote bag was priced at $20.00, for those who are curious about that. Here are a few more photos of my solid white billboard tote bag:
I definitely think that Starbucks should do this again. In 2008, Starbucks had a number of billboards in Seattle, and I thought I would flashback to 2008-era billboards. These would produce great bags! (Sorry the quality isn’t great. These old photos were taken on a very old phone.) The Vivanno billboard runs the risk of producing a few solid white tote bags, but the other two were perfect for this kind of thing!
It’s your turn now. Would you buy one of these tote bags if Starbucks did this again? What do you think of this idea? Did any of my readers buy one of these billboard tote bags?
(Last but not least, if you look very carefully at the image that shows the “Home of Great Coffee” billboard, and the image of the billboard used for this tote bag (on the tag to my white bag), you can see that they were both at the exact same location. The billboard for the tote bag must have come from a site on First Avenue South fairly close to the Starbucks headquarters.)
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well….I think this is a good idea. would I buy one for $20.??? doubtful on the very plain ones. possible on something with some color.
Thanx for posting about this…I never saw anything about it.
I would not probably buy a tote bag in white. I would probably abuse it too much so the color would obviously change. I would perhaps buy one not at $20 but less if it had a neat pic of a SB store or one of their unusual ad campaigns.
I wood buy one! But wood be disappointed if it was totally white! Still thinking it is à nice bag 🙂
Neat idea! You should post it on MSI.
My son bought one for his Mom for the holidays. It too is all white and he is very disappointed. The original image on Starbucksstore.com was misleading. Yes, they showed the billboard and it was very white, but they showed multiple bags and none of them were all white.
I also noticed the bag has a My Starbucks Rewards logo which makes me wonder why these were originally produced and why they have the MSR logo instead of the Starbucks logo. Were they originally planned to be something aimed at MSR customers? If so, what happened?
@Diele – Thanks! Right now I’m tired of the quibbling and bad karma going on in the comments of MSI, and I’m just not up to posting ideas there at the moment – no matter how good or how bad. LOL And there are so many duplicate profiles that I look at the point totals with a big question mark on my mind, because you never know who is voting up or down, or why, or what person voted multiple times. Just tired of it at the moment. I’m sure I’ll post ideas in the future but not now. Sorry for the long reply.
@CD – Good point! I wondered that too! I was wondering if it was originally going to be a MSR reward for like the top 300 customers? LOL. I guess Khloe Kardashian would get one then?
It really is a nice sturdy bag. I am using it for my knitting, books, and netbook. However, I was also a bit disappointed to get an almost solid white bag. I would definitely order another one if I could be more sure of more color.
@LisaC – I love your comment. I am pretty sure that mine will end up with knitting needles and balls of yarn in it too! Yours wasn’t solid white? Can you post a picture of yours? You can use the blog’s facebook page to upload a photos of your. You lucky duck that at least it wasn’t solid white. I wonder if they sent out the solid white ones last.
just a quick comment to say CONGRATS ON 400 BLOG POSTS!! thats absolutely phenomenal! and on a more related topic, I havent seen anything on the tote bags so am assuming that we dont get them over this side of the atlantic, which is a shame, but given the chance id almost certainly jump right into one of them!!
Mike ~ fleetscm
@MikeG – Thanks! You must’ve seen my tweet this morning. Yep this is the 400th blog post. I am amazed that I wrote that much. Could mean I am full of hot air.;) LOL
Gotta stray a bit because if you want a great bag for knitting check out Tom Bihn tombihn.com in Seattle. Great (but pricey) bags with great customer service.
And congrats on 400 posts. That’s amazing.
Melody for sure no hot air! Congrats on achieving 400 posts.
I’d definitely buy a tote bag but would want it to have some colors. Congratulations on 400 posts!!
@Becky E – Thank you!
I’d buy a tote – though like the others above, I’d want some color to it!
I’m not sure I need another tote bag. As a teacher, I’m given a lot as gifts! I do think it’s neat though. Couldn’t they use white on one side and color on the other to spread out the design rather than making a bunch of all white bags?
Great idea! Reuse, Recycle, Reduce waste. Hopefully Starbucks will do this again and offer it to more customers.
@Raquel – Totally agree! I hope they do this again! @Merryncole – Maybe there was just too much white on this billboard. There will be more billboards for sure.
I think this effort is a failure, but I think it also offers a great contrasting example of why Starbucks has been successful.
Starbucks has been successful because they do more than give you a cup of coffee. They give you the best coffee made just for you “and if it’s not perfect we’ll remake it.” It’s that attention to the small things that drives Starbucks’ customer loyalty. It’s not a place to get coffee, it’s a “third place.” They’re not in the coffee business. They’re in the people business, serving coffee.
There was a lot of white on the billboard for sure, however, the person (people) who made these 300 bags could have been more mindful of the bigger picture: they weren’t just making bags, they were making bags out of an old billboard. To that extent, the cutting and piece selection process could have produced more bags with more unique combinations of color/print. Which is what the people (at least Melody, my son and myself) were looking for when they placed their order.
Oooo! I love it! I even like the white – it’s classic and subtle. And the price is quite good too. $20? If you think about it, they are kinda in the same class as the Alchemy Goods products (recycled from outdoor grade materials – their ad bag for $35) but have that kinda cultish brand appeal that Sbux provides. Plus I just love bags!
Oh, and CONGRATS on 400 posts!!
All white seems kind of dissapointing, i think a nice siren logo, or coffee bean or somthing would be nicer
Congratulations on 400, Melody! Happy holidays.
@Melody – did you pay with your Starbucks Card? I did not, but I just went to the site again and noticed if you pay with your Starbucks card it is just like a store purchase so you get MSR credit, etc. Did you know this?
I probably would not buy one, even if they were on sale for $10 unless it was colorful or had a design on it. It would be an awesome tote to use for groceries and the like, or for mr.T to carry stuff to school in (he’s always pilfering our cloth grocery bags for his school lunches!)
@Violetsouffle – These were only available online and the pictures made it appear as if you would receive a colorful bag, but the actual bag received (mine and Melody’s) were plain white. The one I bought was for a gift (my son picked it out for his mother) so it was a bit disappointing to have such a plain bag.
@CD – Are you still there? Take a look at this facebook post that popped up on my blog’s page!
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=345428488801005&set=o.180068562003180&type=1
^ Lisa (she comments here now and then) got one of these bags too. Her’s appears to be almost solid white with just a little color. I am glad she shared a pic of hers!
Hopefully they will do more of these bags (and choose a better billboard). Looking at the billboard these bags came from you can see why most are simply white.
Interestingly, if you look at Lisa’s bag, the contents seem to add a bit of color through the perforations in the white area.