This article is about how to get a free drink at Starbucks. It’s also about the changing beverage industry in the United States. (But if all you’re looking for is the free drink at Starbucks, no problem: just scroll down four paragraphs to heading that says, “How to get a free drink at Starbucks.”)
Short version: Pretty much the entire populations of the United States and Canada can get a free drink on Friday, as part of the company’s plan to spread addiction–sorry, awareness–of their new line of infused iced tea products. The main catch regarding the offer is that it’s only good for one hour during the day.
The development is part of the company’s recognition that it’s one of the fastest growing non-alcoholic beverage categories in the United States. It’s also about what an $85 billion company has to do to stay ahead of emerging trends. Here are the details.
How to get a free drink at Starbucks
It’s a simple promotion. Walk into any participating Starbucks in the United States or Canada on Friday July 14, and you can get one free, tall-sized Teavana Shaken Iced Tea Infusion. These are the new line of “tea, fruit and botanical blends, slightly sweetened with liquid cane sugar” that Starbucks added to its in-store lineup this week.
What’s an iced tea infusion you might ask? It’s iced tea flavored with “botanicals and fruit,” Starbucks product developer Melynda Cheng said in a statement (to which her colleague Megan Droz helpfully added: “Freshly steeped botanicals have subtle flavors that don’t overpower the pure and simple notes of tea, which then have a chance to shine through.”)
Okay, cool. The primary restriction on this offer is that it runs only for a single hour, from 1 pm to 2 pm on Friday, July 14.
Literally one hour. I emailed the press office at Starbucks saying, “Cool that you’re offering free drinks and all, but only one hour? Really?”
So far, no reply. My guess is the limitation is designed either to create forced scarcity or to limit the sheer number of free drinks that the company could be cajoled into giving away.
The why of it all
American tea consumption–especially iced tea–might be the undertold beverage story of the century.
As The Washington Post report noted in 2014, the U.S. market for tea more than quardrupled between 1990 and 2013, from just under $2 billion to $10 billion a year. That’s still only about a quarter of the size of the coffee market, but it’s growing fast.
Meantime, the Tea Association of the USA, Inc. says that Americans consumed 84 billion servings of tea during 2016. Think about that, it’s an insane number. It’s something like 254 servings of tea per person during the year for every man, woman, and child in the country.
Not only that, but 80 percent of that tea consumption was iced tea, not hot, and the vast majority of that was consumed by people in the South and the Northeast. All of which adds up to a super-popular yet classic product whose appeal is growing fast–but that a big part of the country hasn’t yet embraced.
So imagine you’re Starbucks. The company is almost synonymous with coffee. Yet in 2011, Starbucks rebranded to logo to remove the word “coffee” from its logo–the biggest change since they covered up the mermaid’s breasts. You’re #131 on the Fortune 500, with 11,457 Starbucks in the United States alone. The country is saturated–as are our coffee-drinking habits. But, you still have to keep growing, and opening new markets.
Iced tea sounds like a smart play. And if it means giving it all away–for a single hour–it’s a tiny, tiny price to pay.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.