
Jonathan's Card revealed as viral marketing campaign - AlfaWolph
http://www.coffeestrategies.com/2011/08/08/starbucks-and-the-starkbucks-jonathan-card-viral-marketing-campaign
======
patio11
I like the Wikipedia suggestion most of the time: assume good faith. He works
with Starbucks at his day job. He decided to do a hack using an API he was
exposed to there. This is not exactly nefarious, even to the severely-damaged-
evil-meter version of nefarious which includes "intentionally and with
forethought committing the sin of marketing."

I have often used work technologies/clients at play and play technologies at
work.

~~~
credo
>> _This is not exactly nefarious, even to the severely-damaged-evil-meter
version of nefarious which includes "intentionally and with forethought
committing the sin of marketing."_

I don't see marketing as a sin.

However, I do appreciate full disclosure and some level of honesty.

His blog post twice mentioned that it was "totally not affiliated with
Starbucks.". However, if Starbucks had been paying his company for marketing,
imo he would have been better off in mentioning this fact.

~~~
jc123
Agree, disclosure would have been better instead of "totally not affiliated
with Starbucks". I checked the page again and see _"I stumbled on the idea
while doing research related to my work with Mobiquity related to Broadcasting
Mobile Currency."_ Was it there before?

~~~
carsonm
Yes, he stated that far before this story "broke."

------
alanfalcon
I'm not so sure that I trust "coffeestrategies.com" (to me, a random stranger
on the internet with an apparent anti-Starbucks agenda) more than I trust
"Jonathan Stark" (to me, a random stranger on the internet with an apparent
pro-Starbucks agenda)...

I'll say this: if it's truly a corporate sponsored viral marketing campaign,
it's a very good one. I'm not convinced by this random blog post though that
this isn't just someone genuinely doing what he says he's doing.

[http://jonathanstark.com/blog/2011/07/14/broadcasting-
mobile...](http://jonathanstark.com/blog/2011/07/14/broadcasting-mobile-
currency/#more-1486)

~~~
Apple-Guy
The cached client* page is still visible when I checked it. Starbucks is
there. Somehow they removed it after the story came out. Let's see, it must be
coffeestrategies' fault.

Edit*: about -> client

------
carsonm
Nah. I don't know Jonathan, but I've followed him on Twitter for quite a while
after reading his O'Reilly published book on iPhone web app dev. (I think he's
also the guy who took over maintenance of jQTouch.) Anyway, watching the whole
thing evolve on his Twitter stream, it sure seems sincere. "Suspected to be a
viral marketing campaign" might be a more appropriate headline here.

Conspiracy theories are fun to think about, but too many things don't add up
for this one. Thin evidence of it, a potentially anti-Starbucks agenda by
coffeestrategies, the fact that Jonathan is a real live person with tons of
professional credibility, and the fact that in order for it to be true,
Jonathan would have had to pro-actively lie to all those of us who follow and
trust him.

That's strikes me as exceedingly unlikely.

------
jonathanstark
Big thanks to all of the folks who have supported sanity on this thread. My
thoughts here:

[https://www.facebook.com/notes/jonathans-card/the-real-
deal/...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/jonathans-card/the-real-
deal/174391689299156)

Peace, j

~~~
danso
Quite tellingly, you make no denial of the main accusations. The question is
not whether this was your idea, but whether you were telling the truth when
you said that your website was 100% not affiliated.with Starbucks.

~~~
hullo
No, that's just a sideline, a thing people are investigating as to proof to
the actual main question, whether or not this is a viral campaign sponsored by
Starbucks. He quite firmly denies that.

~~~
danso
No, because time is a consideration. If SBUX jumped on the bandwagon to
sponsor it after it became a big hit. Because he could be telling the truth as
at the point of the card's creation, it was just a hobby project of his and
SBUX knew nothing about it.

The main question is whether he is affiliated with SBUX in any capacity,
because that's a statement he made from the start and it's provably true or
false.

My guess is that the truth is somewhere in between. That it was a hobby
project. But that as Starbucks is a client, he figured getting some goodwill
from them through it would be frosting on the cake. He didn't intend to make
money _directly_ , but obviously, if it was a success, SBUX's benefits and so
does Stark's company, indirectly.

This is his website's traffic on the day of the HN mention:
[https://twitter.com/#!/jonathanstark/status/1005925637146624...](https://twitter.com/#!/jonathanstark/status/100592563714662402)

The card had been active for more than two weeks previous. My guess is that a
project that is intended to be a mass-viral ad would not wait for someone to
randomly submit it to HN.

~~~
kellishaver
Mobiquity released a statement on TC confirming no affiliation with Starbucks.

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/10/the-vast-starbucks-
conspira...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/10/the-vast-starbucks-conspiracy-
jonathans-card-wasnt-faked/)

------
mdwrigh2
"Since you don’t care, you might as well click on the paid advertisement below
so Google will send me $.50."

I hope the author knows, this is a clear violation of ToS for AdSense and will
likely jeopardize his account status.

Edit: Sent the author an e-mail, hopefully he fixes it before it becomes an
issue.

~~~
corin_
Don't worry, it's not a violation because he was just joking. (Yes, I am
indeed being sarcastic.)

------
geraldalewis
1) I read the 'The company later had its employees comment on my blog with
fictitious postings' out of context. It's _not_ referring to `Jonathan's Card`
but to the `Pay it Forward` campaign. Just pointing that out since it seems
like others were not clear on that detail either.

2) Calling those `Pay it Forward` posts "fictitious" isn't merited. I would
not be surprised to see an employee of any company posting a defense of the
company they work for.

3) Anyone on HN who read "but unfortunately failed to anticipate that I can
see the originating IP address of incoming comments" and didn't say to
themselves "how does OP know they were trying to obfuscate their identity?"
should be embarrassed.

It's _always_ a good idea to read posts critically, and it's _always_ a good
idea to accept the least cynical understanding of a situation _until
compelling evidence is provided to the contrary_.

I'll consider this submission as bait until something substantial is posted.

~~~
benatkin
On top of that, there's encouraging clicks on Google ads regardless of
interest (some call it click fraud).

[http://www.coffeestrategies.com/2011/08/08/starbucks-and-
the...](http://www.coffeestrategies.com/2011/08/08/starbucks-and-the-
starkbucks-jonathan-card-viral-marketing-campaign#comment-10858)

------
clemesha
Does this mean the below is a fabricated statement?

    
    
      Response from Starbucks: "We think Jonathan's    
      project is really interesting and are flattered
      he chose Starbucks for his social experiment"
    

\-
[http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/10066971227443609...](http://twitter.com/#!/jonathanscard/status/100669712274436096)

~~~
lusr
I don't drink coffee, nevermind go to Starbucks. Can somebody explain whether
it's normal for Starbucks to allow people to walk in and make purchases with a
scanned copy of a card rather than the physical card?!

This to me is the most surprising and questionable aspect of this campaign
being legitimate, but since nobody else is surprised I'm guessing it's normal?
It seems like a total violation of the physical security embodied by requiring
the purchaser to physically possess the card. Furthermore, depending on the
transaction processing model they use, it could subject them to be fraud.

~~~
tjbarbour
This is basically how all of the mobile starbucks card apps work. You install
the app on your phone, logon to your account, and then when you pay it shows
an image of a card with your barcode. In this case, its just using a static
image instead of the one generated by the app. I suppose they were ok with the
tradeoff of convenience over the security risks.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
So you just need an image of a Starbucks card to purchase on that account?
Presumably they're not bothered because it's their customers money that
they're being free and easy with, the more fraud the more money they make ...?

~~~
schme
I don't really know per se, because we don't even have Starbucks where I live,
but:

I thought the image was pretty indistinguishable from the app when viewed in
an image browser. Most of them don't show any borders, so if you walk on the
desk with the image ready, you probably couldn't tell the difference?

------
kellishaver
I _really_ don't think this is the case at all. I've known Mr. Stark for some
time now and he is an honest man of integrity - a good, decent guy.

It's an experiment, exactly as he says it is. I discussed it with him the very
first day he started the project.

I'll choose to believe my friend on this one.

~~~
mikeleeorg
I'm inclined to believe this was a genuine experiment too, or at least a cool
viral marketing campaign that I hope to use - for a free coffee :)

Out of curiosity, is Jonathan on HN too? It would be interesting to hear out
of the horse's mouth here. I see a user with an ID of "jonathanstark":

<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jonathanstark>

P.S. Not all Starbucks cafes accept this card/image. I tried it this morning
and was told they don't accept this method of "payment."

~~~
kellishaver
He is and yes, that is his account. I suspect he'll chime in when he notices
this.

------
sahillavingia
I think there's a pretty big difference between a guy trying out something
cool and an elaborate viral marketing campaign constructed by an agency.

I think this was the former, honestly. Maybe I'm just not jaded enough yet.

------
AlfaWolph
..which I don't think takes anything away from it. It was still clever in
implementation, concept, and now we can just add viral campaign to the list.

Also, I think it's worth pointing out that the people at Metafilter were on it
from the start. I don't know if that says anything about liberal arts and
social science types being more cynical and skeptical or if the science and
technical crowd types here are just easily entranced by the technical
implementation of something and don't see the forest for the trees. It's
probably both.

~~~
gamble
Something about this story seemed to hit a nerve on HN. It didn't get nearly
the same traction on Reddit or Metafilter.

------
barefoot
Unless I'm missing something, I don't think it's been "revealed as a viral
marketing campaign". So, Jonathan's company has worked with Starbucks in the
past - am I missing something? Is that the extent of what we're working with
here? If so, you might as well conclusively claim that I'm a Starbucks
employee paid in part to sweep all of this under the rug.

------
hv23
Disappointed with the misleading title of the post-- "Jonathan's Card revealed
as viral marketing campaign".

Browsing the comments, it's clear that a lot of people are jumping to
conclusions without reading the full blog post (as is the wont of many on the
web), which suggests /some/ link between Starbucks and this campaign-- but is
circumstantial at best. It's anything but the smoking gun that the title would
have you believe.

What really happened is another story (I'm inclined to "assume good faith" in
this instance), but I'm tired of seeing disingenuous titles of articles around
the web that are used to blatantly misinform.

------
citricsquid
The only "bad" thing in my eyes is the cover up, if it is indeed being covered
up. However until it's proven otherwise I'm going to assume this is good old
finding-shit-where-there-isn't-shit which the internet is oh so good at!

Even if the guy does work Starbucks (directly or indirectly) it's a clever
idea, I enjoyed looking at it (and wish I could have taken part) and this
won't change if it was some "viral marketing".

------
saalweachter
I'm generally willing to give someone a pass for repeatedly emphasizing that
their statements/projects/opinions are not in any way affiliated with their
employer. I don't often make statements tangentially related to my work, but
when I do I try to be as clear as possible that I am just a dude and not a
spokesman, and beg people not to blow my statements out of proportion and get
me fired.

On the other hand, this man appears to be a marketer, so I assume that he has
plenty of opportunities to try out his marketing ideas at work, and doesn't do
them as a side project. I think the biggest question I have isn't "did he do
this on his own time, or during his 9-to-5?", but "were 'real' people putting
money on the card, or did the Starbucks marketing department just refill it
when necessary?" As long as it was real people putting the money in and taking
the money out, it's still an interesting social experiment, even if it was
crafted as a marketing campaign.

------
benatkin
I am disappointed after reading the article. Based on the title I expected to
see some evidence. A business relationship that may not even be current and
scrubbing the site doesn't count.

------
robryan
I think it changes from cool project for people with a bit of extra cash to
give others coffees to just another piece of viral marketing. Especially since
it was stated he was within no way affiliated with Starbucks, even if this
does have nothing to do with them he should still mention this affiliation.

------
Urgo
Created by Starbucks for marketing or not it still is a cool idea. I haven't
actually made it into a Starbucks yet myself but I have the image on my phone
ready to try it out if I am near one.

It makes sense though if Starbucks is running it though since it never stays
empty for long and never gets too much of a positive balance. They feed it
just enough to keep people interested but make it empty enough that people
still have to pay half of the time because its empty.

~~~
heelhook
I agree regardless of being initiated by starbucks or not it's a cool idea,
but this blog post is likely to kill the card, very unlikely that people will
put money in.

------
ja2ke
It's totally hindsight driven, but the fact that he started every HN comment
with the same "Jonathan here" type canned greeting should have probably raised
an eyebrow.

(amending this: after reading up a bit I don't agree with my own original
post. It's a very odd thing to do -- I don't ever see anyone on HN post like
that -- but he's not a fictional person or anything like that.)

~~~
zem
i just read that as mildly n00bish behaviour - he came to hacker news simply
because the story was posted here and he wanted to make sure his posts were
known to be from him.

~~~
brianleb
FWIW his account is over a year old (though not very active).

<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jonathanstark>

~~~
billiamram
It looks like the same thing that happened this time. Someone posted an
article of his to HN, then he created an account here to comment.

------
rodh257
Saying he wasn't affiliated with Starbucks was dishonest (if indeed he was
working for them, which I don't think this article really proves), but really
does it matter that much? We were all interested in the experiment, can't we
applaud some good marketing?

------
chaostheory
Fake or not, I really liked it. It was different and most importantly it made
me feel good. If this is advertising I don't mind. It's a lot better than
normal commercials I tend to ignore.

I just wish they didn't pretend that they had nothing to do with it.

------
collypops
Now I feel pretty foolish for spending a few hours of my time developing a
mobile app to use his API.

<http://jonathanstark.com/card/#api>

~~~
mdwrigh2
I wouldn't feel foolish at all. Regardless of whether it's a viral marketing
campaign, it was a neat idea that seems to have caught some steam.

Furthermore, you hopefully gained something from those few hours of work,
whether it's knowledge, satisfaction, or just a little more experience.

~~~
collypops
This was just my initial reaction. I've now completely reversed my thinking on
it, and not because of Jonathan's response. I believe that anyone who puts
enough time into a project like this (sponsored or otherwise) deserves a great
deal of credit and respect regardless of their intent or the outcome. I would
like to think that I'd receive the same amount of admiration, and I don't wish
to taint his achievements in any way.

We all love building cool and interesting shit, and it's more fun when people
open up APIs and datasets and services for us to tap into. I did learn
something in my few hours of hacking, so I thank Jonathan for the inspiration.
I don't feel foolish in the slightest - only empowered to unleash one or two
of my own experiments into the public.

------
metafour
Not sure how credible this is but the article does have a comment from someone
saying that the twitter feed said the card had money when in fact it did not.
They allude that this is part of the marketing ploy.

Did anyone else experience this?

My guess would be that it's just not updated in real time and they just
happened to go at the wrong time. If we're giving the benefit of the doubt...

~~~
jyap
I put in $11 on Sunday at a very slow time. I saw the $11 top up shortly after
in real time on the @jonathanscard Twitter feed. It was the only tweet for
about 10 minutes when my $11 was mostly used up.

My proof! <http://twitpic.com/62shre>

Then someone contacted me via Twitter to say that they used my credits:
<https://twitter.com/#!/PinoyxJay/status/100455783979954176>

Believe what you want.

------
LiveTheDream
I didn't know it was possible to manually clear Google's cache of a web page.
Turns out, it is:
[https://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answ...](https://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=1091779&hl=en)

------
kapilkale
Whoever ends up being responsible for this-- kudos to them; it has been an
entertaining experiment. If it was Sbux, it does make me wonder how many of
these viral campaigns I've missed because they've been better guised.

------
Shenglong
How stupid do you have to be to send comments from Starbucks HQ... Wow. For
such a clever plot, this is a really sad ending. Reminds me of the Mona Lisa
story a few days ago.

~~~
alanfalcon
Read the article again and click the link. There was one Starbucks employee at
Starbucks HQ who made one comment about a totally different story (the
Starbucks pay-it-forward chains).

When I worked at Blizzard, I'd occasionally post pro-Blizzard comments on
random blogs; sometimes I'd do it while at work on break. So what? They were
still my own honest opinions and not some campaign by Activision to defend
Blizzard's honor or something.

~~~
Shenglong
Oh, I didn't click the link - I just assumed he was being correct when he said
"employee _s_ ". Your situation is a little different, if this is a starbucks
advertising campaign.

------
xer0x
This is awesome?! A viral marketing campaign directed at us! Wow.

    
    
      Response from HN could be: "...we are flattered that he chose HN for his social experiment"

~~~
drivingmenuts
Or we could just go the "Machiavellian manipulation of HN readers by lying
like a rug."

Meh, either way. I don't do SBUX. I can make my own caffeination much cheaper.

------
dadads
Wow, everyone here fell for it, me included. Although I have to admit, this is
the first time I've seen a viral campaign involving the creation of an API.

~~~
Pointsly
"fell for it" - I see what you are saying but I think you are giving 'them' 2
much credit.

~~~
dadads
717 karma on the original thread, and nobody suspected a thing!

Now that I know this is Starbucks-funded, I suddenly feel the urge to buy
Frappucinos using the card and make a giant pyramid.

~~~
masterzora
_Now that I know this is Starbucks-funded_

Do you?

------
athst
marketing campaign or not, I think it's really clever. If all marketing
campaigns were even half as interesting, we'd all be a lot better off.

------
FreshCode
If it's true, this is so genius.

