What do you think the marketing of Starbuck's "Ethos Water"?

I wouldn't buy any if Starbucks gave me two free.They are a big
anti second amendment company.Any one backing anti-gun legislation will
not receive a dime from me.

Starbucks sucks! I hate the taste of their coffee and it's way overpriced.

I go to Starbucks for a lot of reasons usually because I'm addicted to mocha frappacinos I buy my water elsewhere but I think there's too many Starbucks, they pop up like weeds.

If I buy something that also means a small charitable donation goes to some good, then thats fine, but if its a charity I am really passionate about I will donate directly.

Wish i would have thought of something like that nice marketing move

I think they should be completely honest about it.

First of all, great marketing move.
But who controls Starbucks and monitors if the money really goes to charities?
And who decides to which charity the money goes to?
I guess I am just a little hesitant that a Multi million Corporation needs to sell water in order to do something good to society....If someone in need benefits in the end, I guess it is a good thing anyway.

What's the big deal?

I think the big deal is that Starbucks is seemingly misleading their customers into thinking they're doing more than what they are.

I don't think we should start boycotting companies that voluntarily give 5% of their profit to charity.

Its less than 5%. Its about 3%? 5 cents per 1.80? Did I read that wrong?

My mistake. thanks for the correction. Either way, I appreciate Starbucks giving anything to charity. They don't have to. They run a great company for its employees with excellent pay and benefits, and Starbucks pays a lot in taxes. Don't discourage other companies from giving even 1% to charity by boycotting Starbucks.

Heh, I didn't vote for the boycott...but I just put the option there if someone felt that strongly about the misleading information.

I think, personally, that if it didn't seem to mislead the customer I might not have an issue with it. I'm glad they're giving back to the world, but not glad that they're not giving back as much as we'd like to believe and I'd rather know up front that its only less than 4% than be lead to believe that its much more (I've heard some people thought it was a whole dollar that went to the charitable causes).

If I decided to run a charity fundraiser on allisonmackonline.com and kept 50% of the money for myself without fully informing the donors, I think they'd have every right to boycott me and my work, even if 50% went to charity. We should really do what we say. When I run charity events/fundraisers, 100% of that money goes TO the charity involved. And I make that clear.

I'm not saying that 100% of their profits should go to clean water or whatever, but again, its the misleading info that's the issue.

I actually know of another brilliant company that is doing something similar, minus the mis-leading portion. mondonation.com is sending a portion of their profits to a charity of your choosing and its something I feel proud of working with any time, because I know fully what's going on.

This is why I like to give money to charities on my own. That way, I can take my time to research and identify the charities that meet my values.

I've only bought about five bottles of Ethos water, and usually it was because I was so parched that I had to, and once I bought two because I was going on a road trip to San Diego and didn't want to make an additional stop for water. But now, it def makes me want to do something where MORE of my money goes to the supposed cause....for sure.