As many readers here know, I wrote a book called Tales of the Siren, and I’m in the midst of writing book #2 about Starbucks. Without going into much detail, one thing I’ve been doing is historical Starbucks research from sources such as The Seattle Times, the Seattle Post Intelligencer, and the Seattle Weekly. I stumbled upon these news articles dating from 1999, and I got such a kick out of them, I thought you’d enjoy them too. (All of these below came from the PI, or if the Sunday paper, the Seattle Times.)
I love the Howard Schultz quote, “We’re not just throwing up a Web site.” Note that Starbucks data in 1999 was that 10 percent of store customers would use such a website! From July 11, 1999, Seattle Post Intelligencer:
From February 21, 1999, notice the advertisement in the classifieds, inviting Starbucks customers to come into stores for a contest. It looks like a partnership between United Airlines, Seattle Times, and Starbucks with the grand prize as a trip to Verona, Italy. How cool is that!
And then there was the partnership with Mark McGwire (of the St. Louis Cardinals) where Starbucks donated $5,000 for each homerun hit by the batter during the season. Each donation went to a literacy organization in the city where it was hit:
And from 1999, shortly after the annual shareholders meeting, there’s this great photo of Kenny G playing for the audience, and Howard Schultz entertained by the performance. I realize that when I write this, it might sound as if I’m joking, but let me just say (in a serious tone of voice please), I wouldn’t mind at all if Kenny G came and performed again at another annual meeting! I’d enjoy it!
I hope you enjoyed this flashback to 1999. If you like Starbucks history lessons, browse this category here.
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Great seeing these classic articles that most of us would not otherwise see. It’s a fantastic look at the history of Starbucks!
@Nicholas – Thank you! I love these kind of flashback looks at Starbucks. It’s pretty amazing how the world has changed since 1999, and that even back then, Starbucks was quick to jump on the latest technology thing.
It would be a great site feature if you could do a series of year in review for Starbucks.
@Brian Chow – I can look into it. The one thing though, I recognize it doesn’t look like it, but this was an incredibly labor intensive task. Essentially I sat at the Seattle Public Library for about 3 hours scanning old newspapers on microfiche.
The Seattle Times has a digitized archives, but text only past about 1990 – none of these fun actual newspaper issues. The Seattle Post Intelligencer is NOT digitized – you basically have to manually search via microfiche.