Starbucks Korea closes all its stores after controversial marketing campaign | economy

The South Korean “Shinsegae” group announced that its Chairman of the Board of Directors, Chung Young-jin, senior executives and employees of “Starbucks Korea” will undergo intensive training to enhance historical awareness and social sensitivity, in the wake of a crisis sparked by a marketing campaign that critics linked to memories of the suppression of the 1980 Gwangju pro-democracy uprising.

The group said that all Starbucks Korea stores will close their doors at three o’clock in the afternoon on June 22 to allow employees to participate in mandatory training, in a step that is the first of its kind since the chain entered the South Korean market in 1999.

The decision came after a promotional campaign launched by the company run by E-Mart, a subsidiary of the Shinsegae Group, on May 18 under the name “Tank Day,” coinciding with the anniversary of the Gwangju Democratic Uprising, which was suppressed by the military authorities at the time using troops and tanks, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries.

The campaign sparked widespread anger after the company promoted stainless steel cups bearing the name “SS Tank”, using an advertising phrase that said: “Put them on the table with a ‘tack’ sound!”

Critics considered that the name and slogan evoke memories of military repression, and some of them linked the word “Tak” to the case of student activist Park Jong-chul, who died under torture in 1987, after the authorities claimed at the time that he died after hitting his head on a desk.

The company stopped the campaign within hours of its launch after mounting criticism, while officials spoke of a “very significant” decline in sales. The group’s president, Chung Young-jin, also made a public apology over the crisis.

Shinsegae confirmed that the decision reflects the group’s seriousness in dealing with the recent controversy and its commitment to preventing the recurrence of such incidents in the future, noting that it will review the mechanisms for approving marketing campaigns by introducing a checklist that includes historical and political issues, disasters, military issues, violence and hate speech.

Starbucks Korea is the country’s largest coffee chain in terms of customer payments, and was operating more than 2,000 stores by the end of 2024.

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According to the group, Chung and CEOs of subsidiaries will participate in a separate training session on June 24, while E-Mart corporate officials and Starbucks Korea headquarters employees will undergo training on June 17.

She added that the program will include a lecture presented by a history professor from Sungkyunkwan University on the most prominent stations of modern and contemporary Korean history since the 1950s, in addition to another session led by a sociology professor that will address how to take social issues, such as history, work, gender, and human rights, into consideration in companies’ marketing activities.