Starbucks engages fans by letting them choose which city gets the Pumpkin Spice Latte first
Calgary was the winning Canadian city, earning 16 percent of the 38 million points racked up across 142 cities.
With more than 27 million fans, Starbucks’ Facebook community is larger than the population of many countries. No wonder, then, that the coffee retailer likes to give these brand loyalists a say in how it does things. Using Facebook, that’s exactly what Starbucks did.
As the company was preparing for the annual rollout of its beloved Pumpkin Spice Latte, Starbucks decided to let Facebookers make the call on which U.S. and Canadian cities would get to enjoy the holiday-themed beverage for a week prior to the national launch. A Pumpkin Spice Latte app let fans earn points for their cities through activities like doing a city shout-out or solving a daily challenge. It was a clever way to reward and empower the brand’s most passionate fans.
The real-time leaderboard on Starbucks’ Page kept the competition steaming—all the way to the end of the match, when Chicago and Calgary took home the foam.