Sorry Starbucks but we're pretty sure the Olsen twins and Anna Wintour are not gonna be too enthusiastic about drinking some Sanka type shit, what are they, auto repairpersons???

Starbucks' whole sales pitch here: It tastes the same as our regular coffee, but it's way cheaper and you don't have to go to a Starbucks for it. Bad move.

"We're convinced a majority of people won't be able to tell the difference," said Mr. Schultz, who explained that he has secretly been serving Via to people at his office and home for months and that they haven't realized they were drinking instant coffee.

1. Well, no reason to pay Starbucks prices now, hmm? Why don't we all just carry our personal hobo cups, fished out of the trash, and heat water in a sardine tin, with a Bic lighter, and mix it with our Starbucks Hobo Coffee Crystals? Sounds good? God.

2.Physical danger.

[Pic: Flickr, Flickr]

The character created by one-time Wintour assistant Lauren Weisberger and portrayed (brilliantly!) in the movie by Meryl Streep is a caricatured version of the magazine tyrant meant to sell books and movie tickets. She throws her coat and bag at her assistants, she has exacting standards for how her lunch is cooked and the temperature of Starbucks, and she sacrifices her friends to keep her job.

Wintour may do all these things too, but last night, America tuned in hoping to see the beast come to life, and instead they got a mildly self-deprecating lady who championed fashion's ability to do good and pooh-poohed the stories of her cruelty. She was kind of sweet, at least compared to the cartoon version of her we're used to. Miranda Priestly would have crawled over the desk and eaten Dave's head. Anna Wintour just made a few jokes about his socks.

And that's why Weisberger did her boss the biggest public relations favor when she betrayed her by writing The Devil Wears Prada: No matter what Wintour does on Letterman or at the 92nd St. Y or on 60 Minutes or in front of a documentary crew for The September Issue (and she does some shitty things), she'll never be as bad as her trumped-up alter ego. The most telling moment of last night was when she strutted onto the set of the Ed Sullivan Theater wearing her trademark sunglasses, only to take them off to do her interview. With that she told us, "Yes, I am an icon and you think you know me, but guess what, I'm not that bad." And, you know what, she's probably right.

She seemed up-beat and talked sweetly with her husband, until the barista told Anna that she liked her necklace....Anna looked none to pleased at that! See pic attached!

They're raising prices on macchiatos and frappucinos and the other fancy drinks of the sort that mediocre comedians like to mock in exaggerated tones, adding, "What does that even mean?"

Conversely, the "Just a regular coffee" drinks of the sort that mediocre comedians pine for as a counterpoint to the fancy newfangled drinks will see their prices go down.

So the yuppies willing to pay more for fancy coffee are now subsidizing the poors, who will get their basic swill cheaper. Starbucks and Barack Obama should probably meet in some sort of socialism summit?
[Pic via]

The Wall Street Journal reveals that the coffee company of choice for robots has a whole team of efficiency experts that will come to your Starbucks location, watch your every move, then tell you how, by plotting the movements of your arms, legs, fingers, toes, and head on a PowerPoint graph that is cross-referenced with a 3D image map of cataloging even your smallest eye twitches, you can shave several seconds off your Macchiato assembly time.

He and a 10-person "lean team" have been going from region to region armed with a stopwatch and a Mr. Potato Head toy that they challenge managers to put together and re-box in less than 45 seconds.

Huzzah for "fun" corporate thinking tools! That Mr. Potato Head is just one of the tools Starbucks used to help its super-efficient Oregon City story "cut two seconds" off its average drive-thru time (the other tool: threats). No price is too high to pay to achieve our common Starbucks goal!

If Starbucks can reduce the time each employee spends making a drink, he says, the company could make more drinks with the same number of workers or have fewer workers.

Work harder. Work faster. Work more. Work yourself out of a job!
[Pic via]

Starbucks stock soared this week! Mcdonalds' earnings bored this week. Why the sudden disparity? It's not just because of the perfect oatmeal at Starbucks, drawing consumers from far and wide, willing to stand in lines for hours, braving the elements, to get one single dollop of that sweet, sweet oatmeal on their tongue and its accompanying taste buds. It's also because we, as Americans, believe that we can now afford to stop eating Dollar Menu dinners, and start eating six-dollar breakfasts, consisting of a latté and a muffin, which is the New American Dream.

How do the CEOs of global advertising conglomerates feel about this newfound optimism? Optimistic! "The worst is behind us," said one ad CEO. "We feel we've hit the troughs," said another. They were explaining why their earnings for the past quarter sucked. But more importantly, they were explaining the hope which flourishes in the breast of you, the consumer—the hope that funny beer ads will come back on TV soon. You like the funny ones, with the jokes.

And the pretty ladies.

It's clear that private industry is doing its part for the recovery. So who's dropping the ball? The government, as usual. Let me be clear: the government (DEMS, Nobama). (If you want to be picky it is actually "States" which are sometimes run by "Republicans.") People simply cannot get their unemployment checks, to spend stimulatively. Processing delays are rampant.

Kenneth Kottwitz, a laid-off cabinet maker in Phoenix, waited three months for his benefits to arrive. He exhausted his savings, lost his apartment and moved to a homeless shelter.

Luis Coronel, a janitor at a San Francisco hotel, got $6,000 in back benefits after winning an appeal. But in the six months he spent waiting, there were times when he and his pregnant wife could not afford to eat.

Good lord. That's terrible. Reassure us, Obama administration, please?

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said: "Obviously, some of our states were in a pickle."

We feel better. See you atop a mountain of gold.
[Pic via]

17 year-old Kyle Shaw bragged to his friends about detonating a device that took out a few windows and some benches at said UES Starbucks in lieu of beginning some sort of Project Mayhem, a terrorist group depicted in Fight Club. The cops busted him, he got taken to the hoosgow, and sent home to house arrest on a $100,000 bail. But not before someone tried to see how legit he was about this whole Fight Club thing. In essence: the kid got socked.

The 17-year-old said he was using a jailhouse phone when a fellow inmate asked if he was in "the program" — a real-life "Fight Club" at Rikers.

The menacing query was quickly followed by a punch to the teen's face.

Emphasis mine. It's not reported whether or not said punch was retribution for violating the First Two Rules of Fight Club, but neither was the punch, apparently: as of his showing up to court, he hadn't reported the punch to authorities, so maybe he learned the first two rules!

Then again, it could've been an overzealous Starbucks employee jacked up on the sauce! They might start serving it in locations around the country, and they're testing out the new program in Seattle next week.

Starbucks is trying to brew up new business by offering bottled beer and glasses of wine at one of its Seattle stores next week — with a view toward expanding its version of European-style coffeehouses to other cities. The 16,000-store chain hopes to offer a more traditional coffeehouse, with live music and poetry readings and espresso made from a manual machine rather than an automated one. It would also offer bottled beer and glasses of wine for $4 to $7.

Maybe he was a lab rat? It's a long-shot (read: zero possibility, though, we wish) but either way, the kid doesn't have to worry about the legacy of Project Mayhem moving forward. If Starbucks ends up with their diabolical plan to infect America with booze-shilling, live-performance-having, European-esque coffeehouses that can spice up a Frappichino to go with that open mic, Mayhem will run awesomely, absolutely wild.

COFFEE MORON'S JAILHOUSE SHINER [NYP]

A CHAIN OF 'BAR' BUCKS [NYP]

After the bomb went off, we wrote: "Two teenagers were seen fleeing shortly after the blast blew out windows of the Starbucks. Therefore everything about this story is guaranteed to be the result of idiocy." Turns out we were wrong—everything that happened was the result of idiocy and Chuck Palahniuk. Cops arrested 17 year-old Kyle Shaw for the explosion, which "appears to have been modeled on a scene from the 1999 film 'Fight Club.'"

Mr. Shaw had bragged to friends that he was responsible for the bombing, [NYPD head Ray] Kelly said, and had started an underground fight club modeled on the one in the 1999 film, which was directed by David Fincher and starred Brad Pitt and Edward Norton and was based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk.

"His statements indicated he was launching his own Project Mayhem," Mr. Kelly said

Kyle had a copy of Fight Club on his person at the time he was arrested. True fact. Cops also found "a box of sparklers" in his house, so, close call.
[NYT]

McDonald's Corp.'s sales rose 5.1% last month as the fast-food chain continued to attract consumers amid the global recession and rising unemployment...this year's results were aided by the introduction of new McCafe coffee beverages.

McDonald's message is this: "Now you have a good excuse to buy a cheap ass burger while you pick up your daily tub of coffee, yuppies." Clear, direct, and honest. Meanwhile, the chief marketing guy at Starbucks is like "McD's will recruit all these new yuppies who will get tired of drinking their swill and trade up to our swill!" while glancing around nervously, adding, "Yea, that's the ticket. 'Trading up.' Yea, I like the sound of that." We all know you're toast, Starbucks man.

The joke on both of them is that there are no yuppies left. Only wretches.
[Ad Age, WSJ. Pic: mm mcderomott's Flickr]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.I am 95% confident that this was written by this guy.
[Ad Age. Pic via]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.While Conde Nast is fighting off financial decline and swine flu, rival publisher Hearst is doing marginally better! Hearst's mags are losing less advertising than competitors, and some of its new titles are showing great promise. The NYT attributes this to "against the grain" practices like keeping articles offline and raising newsstand prices, but it may just be the lack of swine flu giving them the advantage.

The New York Times raised its prices today, to $2 weekly and $5 on Sunday. Since we just saw the "worst quarter in modern history for American newspapers," it seems fair. [Pic: Newyorkist]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The wait is over, America: Starbucks has become the official joe of Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough. Will Joe Scarborough still be able to impartially report on the coffee industry in light of this new partnership? Who cares?

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Bill Rancic, winner of The Apprentice, was assigned the task of replacing the Chicago Sun-Times building with condos. A tipster sends this photo: COME AND GET EM BILL. [Clarification: this pic is from 2004. So, the poignant moment has passed.]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Giant Magazine tells us that a rumor from last Friday that they're going to fold after their next issue is "false": "GIANT is currently working on its September/Fall Fashion issue, on newsstands early August," says a spokesperson.

At 3:30 yesterday morning—a day of memorial for the soldiers of capitalism—a thunderous, thundering thunder thundered through the overcompensated canyons of 92nd St, making it known to one and all (yuppies) that the people are not afraid to use a "jumbo plastic pill jar — like those used for bulk-bought vitamins or aspirin — filled with smokeless flash powder and connected to a hobbyist fuse" to strike them right where they live.

This has happened before, people. Wake up! Previous small bombs attacks have occurred "on the Times Square military recruiting station in 2008; on the Mexican Consulate at 27 East 39th Street in 2007; and on an office building housing the British Consulate at 845 Third Avenue in 2005."

But of course your average petit bourgeois intellectual is far too wrapped up in their yoga and dog ownership and child rearing and rampant acquisition of consumer possessions to connect the dots. It was only now, when their precious Starbucks was violently struck down, that the rich have awoken and been truly terrorized. Once they realized that this was not one of their reality distorting "television" shows, the sheer terror of imminent class war sent them fleeing with their wretched brood!

Later on Monday a woman walking by the blast scene with her daughter explained how shows like "C.S.I." are filmed. Then she realized the sidewalk was no stage set.

"This is the real deal?" she said. "I'm explaining it like it was a movie," she said as she grabbed the girl's hand and hurried away.

Two teenagers were seen fleeing shortly after the blast blew out windows of the Starbucks. Therefore everything about this story is guaranteed to be the result of idiocy.

[NYT, NYP. Pic: Getty]

Honestly I haven't seen one fucking ad for this yet, myself, but that's okay, since McD's did an excellent job hyping up how their ads are EVERYWHERE, don't even try to miss them:

McDonald's — never known for a delicate marketing touch — is about to drop the mother of all campaigns on you, an everywhere-you-look, invade-your-dreams ad campaign in support of its McCafé specialty coffee drinks that will be not so much viral as bubonic. An estimated $100-million mega-buy across TV, Web, radio, print, outdoor and social media, the McCafé push beginning today will be, according to the company, its biggest "menu initiative" since it began serving breakfast in the 1970s.

Fine, fine. But Starbucks is an identity, not just a coffee shop. The bigger question here is: Will the yuppies of America sell their very faux-souls during a recession for measly $100 mil, forsaking Starbucks for the clutches of McD's? Sure, if McDonald's puts some fucking copies of Akeelah and the Bee by the register, some Dylan on the radio, open a store on Astor Place. Yuppies will flock to that shit to save a nickel. Drink your McCafé, yuppié.

[I'm getting some tomorrow!]

The thing is that both of these Starbucks were always fucking packed. Packed with the same people who would always be like "Starbucks right next to another Starbucks, WTF, they're taking over, corporate bullshit, etc." People like us! But those fucking Starbucks just kept on making money, money, money.

Or so one would think! But now the big ass location on Astor and Third Ave. is closing down. We knew SBUX was having trouble, but this—this is the end of the world as we know it. If you lived in New York during the NEW GILDED AGE of the mid-to-late 00's, you'll always remember those two Starbucks, a mere block away from each other, standing astride the East Village like living "Fuck You"'s to anyone nostalgic for the heroin and Bob Dylan and Basquiat and all that other romantic shit. Starbucks, baby. Suck my latte. Now there's only one Astor Place location left, dangling all alone, like Lance Armstrong's last testicle.

Starbucks, you bastard. You are Cobra Commander to our G.I. Joe. It wasn't your presence that destroyed our rage against the machine. It's your absence. What do we hate now? Coldstone?
[Eater]

The Philly Inquirer and Daily News declared bankruptcy last weekend. Then yesterday it was revealed, hey, the company's CEO Brian Tierney awarded himself almost a 40% raise last year even as he was forcing staff to cut costs! Now the exec says he will give up that raise. Brian Tierney's actual former job: PR mastermind.


Remember when everybody thought that Starbucks was going to be the great new place to sell books and stuff, it was all gonna be really important and the future of both Starbucks and booksellers and movie sellers, etc? Didn't really pan out. And now who knows what they're doing over there: "A memoir by Isabel Gillies, who plays Kathy Stabler on NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, will be the next book featured at Starbucks stores around the country. Gillies' Happens Every Day, which tells of the collapse of her marriage to DeSales Harrison, will be published March 24." Finally, we will know what it was really like being married to DeSales Harrison. (She's now married to a WSJ reporter, btw).


Wacky shit going down in Utah! Reporters at the Deseret News staged a byline strike today. Are you ready for the reason? It was "in protest of management changes made as the paper transforms itself into a Mormon niche publication." ONLY IN UTAH, KIDS.


Getty Images says it overpaid some photographers. Now it would like that money back, please. A tipster forwards us the memo:

Dear Contributor,

Our internal audits and reviews recently identified an error in how we calculated the royalty rates and home territories used in reporting and paying your Getty Images royalties, since our acquisition of Media Vast.

As a result of this error you were overpaid royalties on previous statements. To correct this situation we will begin deducting the amount due as a result of the overpayment, from your January 2009 royalties, at 20% of the royalties due to you for that month, and from future royalties, until the overpaid amount is fully recouped.

Section 1 - Corrections
Our system reverses (reporting a negative amount in parentheses) all transactions prior to January 2009 that have been reported and paid at an incorrect royalty rate on previous royalty statements. Each transaction is then re-reported on this statement as a positive amount at the corrected royalty rate. Since the total for the negative transactions is higher than the royalty rate for the positive transactions, the result is a negative balance, or the amount we have overpaid.

Section 2 – Jan 2009 Royalties
January 2009 royalty transactions are reported in this section and separated into US and Non-US sales and totaled.

Earnings Summary
A summary is provided at the end of the statement to show that 20% of your royalties (total of section 2) are being applied to the corrections (total of section 1). The remaining overpaid balance will be added to your next royalty statement as an advance and 20% of royalties will be applied to reducing the balance each month until it is zero. The remaining 50% of the royalties will be paid to you according to the normal royalty payment schedule.

If you prefer to pay off the overpayment in a lump sum or at a higher monthly percentage, we are happy to accommodate you.

UPDATE: Getty Images' PR person sends this statement: "The letter that Getty Images sent (the one posted on your site) was issued to just 5% of MediaVast contributors, to address our errors in overpaying their royalties. Recently, several MediaVast contributors pointed out to us that they were being overpaid, so we conducted an internal audit and found that we had input the wrong royalty rates for one group of contracts when they were transferred to Getty Images.
To correct the situation, we developed an overpayment recoupment schedule to have as little negative impact on the contributors as possible. It is important to note that MediaVast and Getty Images editorial contributors receive the same royalty splits for in/out of home territory."

The event has already been diminished by the recession. Betsey Johnson, Carmen Marc Valvo and Vera Wang cut their runway shows for this month's Fashion Week; next year the event moves to smaller, more awkward space at Lincoln Center.

Now the coffee is coming from a mass purveyor of grease and corn syrup, according to Ad Age, with McDonalds offering "McCafe" products, including free espresso and coffee, in the event's main tent. Ad Age:

McDonald's strategy will likely grab the attention of the tabloid-reading young women that follow the tastemakers and celebrities in the front row.

Except how many "tastemakers and celebrities" would be caught dead with a McDonald's cup in their hands? It's just a sign you don't have enough peons at your disposal to have someone fetch you a latte. The minions of Anna Wintour, noted Starbucks fan (see above), will get a healthy workout.

The answer is obvious:

The inauguration coverage by the cable news channel MSNBC will be projected onto movie theater screens in 21 cities next Tuesday. The channel is also planning to announce a partnership with Starbucks to simulcast its coverage in 650 of the company’s stores.

Which stores? The ones in New York, San Francisco and Seattle, where MSNBC is legal, where the president-elect's fans are fervent, where people can still afford Venti Peppermint White Chocolate Mochas, and where it is understood that some Change should be left in the jar by the register.

The liberal cable news network's Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough will probably spend the entire time yelling at and viciously mocking one another, so be sure to claim your table as soon as your local Starbucks opens, so you can enjoy that for many hours, in a caffeinated and highly-focused state.

John Moore, a former Starbucks marketer, estimated that between 12% and 15% of customers are drip-coffee drinkers, and that each of the company's 7,100 locations serves about 800 people a day. Those figures would set a conservative giveaway estimate at 568,000. Starbucks' cost per cup is about 30¢, according to several executives familiar with the matter, which would put the cost of the giveaway at about $170,000.

Of course that estimate doesn't account for the fact that the number of customers surged well above normal — long lines are common in giveaway situations — but it also doesn't take into account how some drip coffee drinkers ordered food, covering the cost of the brew. And even if Starbucks spent two or three times the estimated amount, it still was out less than $1 million.

Politicians take notice: You can attract and stir up buzz among urban voters on the cheap, so long as caffeine is involved. There's a reason they're called "latte liberals."