Jennifer Ackerman
Terryl Atkins
VISA 1500 01
October 3, 2022
Starbucks Strawless Lids Advertisement
The advertisement was made by Starbucks to stop the usage of straws showing that there are now ‘sippy lids’ that are gonna be used instead of straws. This is a still based ad. It shows two cups of iced coffee using the new lids instead of having straws in them for people to use to drink. The main subjects in this advertisement are the two cups of iced coffee that are placed directly in the middle of the ad and take up a lot of the space. The ad uses a variety of different colours on it. The background is a light blue colour so that it doesn’t overshadow anything that is on the ad. They have the words “STRAWS OUT. LIDS IN. STRAWLESS LIDS’ in a bold dark green/black on the top of the ad and then the words “Order your favourite drinks and feel good about it!” on the bottom in a lighter green and in a smaller font because its not as important as the other parts of it. This picture is clear and somewhat realistic.
The message that this ad is conveying is that using straws is out and just drinking out of a lid is in and it will make you feel better because it is making the world greener. Through the pictures it kind of shows the message because the cups of coffee have a sipping lid on them instead of a lid and a straw, also the words on the ad say what the ad is trying to convey to people. The target group of people for this ad are coffee drinkers or people who order drinks from Starbucks. I think this advertisement can work towards the targeted group because in the words it says that by using the lid instead of a straw you will feel better about yourself. At first glance this ad just looks very pretty and pleasing to the eye because of the different colours and how perfect the cups of coffee look also because of the green that they put on two opposite orders of the ad. But the message of the ad does not really affect me because if the words weren’t there I wouldn’t even know what the ad was about.
Kabodian found that although Starbucks tried to become greener and stop the use of plastic and make things more recyclable the strawless lids although 9% less plastic made, they are made out of polypropylene material which is a variation of plastic and is not recyclable. That plastic is also used in the making of straws so all in all the strawless lids actually use more plastic than the actual use of straws. In the second article Patrick Martin found that Starbucks was using a market-based solution. The idea to get rid of straws came because of the video of the turtle with the plastic straw stuck up its nose. He also found like Kabodian that the new lids actually used more plastic than the old combination of straw and lid. Although Starbucks did come back to that by saying “by nature, the straw isn’t recyclable, and the lid is so we feel this decision is more sustainable and more socially responsible”. He also said that recyclable lids really only see a benefit when they are actually recycled. So all in all the change from straws to lids did not help that much because most of global waste is not recycled.
References
Kabodian. “The flaws of straws: Graduate student looks at greenwashing, social media and the Straw Ban Movement.” Today@Wayne, 21 April 2022, https://today.wayne.edu/news/2022/04/21/the-flaws-of-straws-graduate-student-looks-at-greenwashing-social-media-and-the-straw-ban-movement-47748
Patrick Martin. “Starbucks’ last Straw”. James Madison Institute, 8 August 2018, https://www.jamesmadison.org/starbucks-last-straw/
Oda Naoko
I think this analysis is successful. At first, the description of this ad is clear and easy to understand. After that, you describe how the ad convince people well. Moreover, I agree with the aim of this and about the target of this advertisement also. You write why it pleasing at glance to us too, so I think you cloud make an analysis from a visual point of view. Through the analysis, the main point is that actually, the ‘sippy lids’ are not good for the environment, and it could be Green washing. From first citation, we can know the concrete fact that though the strawless lids although 9% less plastic made, they are made out of polypropylene that is not recyclable. In addition, it supported by another article. The second reference state “new lids, on average, use more plastic than the old straw and lid combination.” Combined with the first article, it become be clear that the lid of Starbucks’s lid instead of straw is completely environmentally friendly. Accordingly, I think you chose good references. In second article, this campaign of Starbucks is treated as an example of a market-based solution. This article is very interesting. There is story about to stop using plastic straw, and plastic straws make up only 0.02 percent of plastic waste in the ocean. If you could more afford to write, you could have mentioned more about this. In conclusion, this analyzation of ad is easy to understand and I can say it is successful. Choice of references are adequate and support to main idea well.