Thirteen An Unlucky Number? Not According To Starbucks!

Earlier this month, we were given a sneak peek of Starbucks’ new holiday cup, and starting today it’s official Starbucks has released their official holiday cup. However, this year, it’s not just one cup but thirteen! That’s right, thirteen cups to celebrate the holiday season. The most exciting part of this new idea this year is that each cup was designed by customers from around the world.

“We hope that this year’s red holiday cup designs express the shared spirit of the holidays as told by our customers,” said Sharon Rothstein, Starbucks global chief marketing officer. 

The History Behind This Year’s Starbucks Holiday Cups

Last year’s holiday cups, which were minimalistic plain red cups, brought disappointment to the masses who translated he absence of any Christmas-related design to the absence of religion. Unknown at that time, the plain red cups was the driving force behind this year’s holiday cups. 

Taking a cue from customers who had been using their red holiday cups as a canvas, last December Starbucks invited customers to share their designs on Instagram. In eight days, Starbucks received 1,200 submissions under the hashtag #RedCupArt, with beautiful drawings done in white. 

 

A photo posted by Starbucks Coffee ☕ (@starbucks) on Dec 17, 2015 at 1:07pm PST

“We were surprised and inspired by the amount of incredible art submitted by our customers. The designs were beautiful, expressive and engaging,” said Dena Blevins, creative director, Starbucks Global Creative Studio. “We quickly realized there was potential to use the customer-created art for our holiday cups.” 

Next, the Starbucks team asked a small group of customers to mail in their cup so that it could be evaluated for potential production. The team worked to honor the artists and the integrity of their artwork, making as few changes as possible to the original.

In the end, 13 customer designs were selected from six countries to represent the collective spirit of the holidays around the world. Their designs will be showcased on the holiday cups served in the more than 25,000 Starbucks stores in 75 countries. 

Gotta Catch ’em All

All we’ve got to say is kudos, Starbucks!