Jonathan’s Card: Marketing Genius or Social Experiment?
The McCauley Marketing team feels it’s pretty safe to say that most marketing professionals love coffee. In fact, a 2010 study by CareerBuilder® and Dunkin’ Doughnuts found that marketing and public relations professionals ranked 9th on the list of top 12 coffee consuming professions. More than just coffee, the McCauley Marketing team loves Starbucks, so when we heard about Jonathan Stark’s Starbucks social experiment (better known as “Jonathan’s Card”), we followed the story. Due to the creativity of this experiment, the fact that skeptics declare it a Starbucks marketing campaign, and its recent shut down, we wanted to share the experiment with you as a demonstration of the power of social media.
For those who haven’t been following the story and don’t know what Jonathan’s Card is, on July 14, 2011, Jonathan Stark posted a blog entitled Broadcasting Mobile Currency. Stark, a Starbucks lover himself is a mobile payment application developer who enjoyed using his mobile phone to pay for his coffee with a Starbucks app. Long story short, Stark realized that he could pay for his Starbucks with a digital photo of his app. After this realization, he broadcast a photo of his Starbucks card on his blog with a balance of $30 as a social experiment and invited people to use it. The balance was depleted shortly after he posted the photo, so he added another $50, which was gone again after about 5 hours. Much to his surprise, the card contained a balance on the following day even though he hadn’t added money. Other people were adding money to the card.
On July 18th, Stark posted a page on his website describing the experiment that explained how to use the card and how to reload it. People all over the U.S. began sharing Jonathan’s Card, using it to buy coffee and returning the favor to others by adding to the fund. Stark wrote a bot that obtains the card information from Starbucks and posts balance updates on Twitter every fifteen minutes, so users would know whether or not money was on the card before they tried to use it. The Jonathan’s Card twitter page has 14,779 followers and counting. On August 8th, Stark created a Jonathan’s card Facebook page that now has over 8,909 likes.
Appearing to be viral marketing at its best, people began to speculate that Stark worked for Starbucks’ marketing team. Although Stark specifically stated on his website and blog that he was not associated with Starbucks, it appears the company he works for is associated with Starbucks. However, a representative from Starbucks came out and said that Starbucks knew nothing of the experiment and had nothing to do with it even though they liked the “pay-it-forward” idea. Marketing campaign or social experiment, Jonathan’s Card went viral in a little less than a month. Media outlets across the country covered his experiment. People were even saying that the whole world could use just one single card, until, of course, someone took advantage of the project.
On August 12, 2011, entrepreneur Sam Odio posted a blog on his website entitled How to use Jonathan’s card to buy yourself an iPad. Apparently, Odio found a way to transfer funds from Jonathan’s Card onto his personal Starbucks cards. Watching the card’s previous rate of gain, he figured he could gain about $625—enough to buy an iPad in just five hours. Odio’s blog declared he did not actually plan to buy an iPad but instead intended to auction the cards on eBay and donate the money to the Save the Children foundation. Despite his debatably good intentions, the fact that he was taking money for something besides what it was donated for upset people, including Starbucks who had to shut off the card later that night.
The impact created by Jonathan’s Card during its short, month long, existence is amazing. Although the experiment ended, Jonathan’s Card’s Facebook and Twitter pages show the power of social media marketing for themselves. Even though the card was canceled, people continue to post on the project’s Facebook detailing how they continue to “pay-it-forward” their own way by doing something nice for a stranger.
Sometimes the best marketing strategies seem a little off the wall prior to being implemented. While Stark’s experiment wasn’t exactly a “marketing strategy” per se, it has marketing professionals everywhere kicking themselves. The moral to the story: be daring. Don’t abuse your resources by wasting them on dead-end marketing plans, but ideas like Stark’s don’t cost much money. He spent $80 plus his time. Think outside the box and don’t be afraid to try ideas that may seem abnormal, and use free tools to your advantage. For more marketing tips and updates, keep reading our blog and visit the rest of our website.