BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks

Subject: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 12:54 AM

Brewery to Starbucks: Here's $6

Jim Salter, The Associated Press
31 December 2013

ST. LOUIS — A small Missouri brewery has responded to a cease and desist letter from Starbucks by sending the coffee chain giant a check to cover what it calls the profit from use of the word "Frappicino" — a check for $6.

Starbucks asked a brewery to stop using the name "Frappicino," spelled similarly to its blended beverages.
Exit 6 Pub and Brewery in the St. Louis suburb of Cottleville named one of its brews the Frappicino, spelled just slightly differently than the name that Starbucks uses for its blended beverages. That prompted an attorney for Starbucks Coffee Co. to send Exit 6 a letter Dec. 9.

The letter from attorney Anessa Owen Kramer noted that the Seattle-based company "is the owner of a number of world-famous trademarks, including the well-known FRAPPUCCINO trademark." It said that the words are "phonetically identical" and that Exit 6's use of Frappicino "is likely to cause confusion, mistake."

In his sarcastic response letter, Exit 6 owner Jeff Britton also wrote that the brewery "never thought that our beer drinking customers would have thought that the alcoholic beverage coming out of the tap would have actually been coffee from one of the many, many, many stores located a few blocks away."

Exit 6 posted the letter on its Facebook site and responded with a letter to Kramer and "Mr. Bucks." The letter said Exit 6 would no longer use the term "Frappicino" and would instead refer to its beer as the "F Word."

Britton said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he brewed up a new batch of "The F Word" last Friday. By then, the dispute was already drawing attention on social media, and the beer sold out in three hours. He's contemplating making more, based on the calls, emails and Facebook messages of support he said he's received from around the world.

"It's been unbelievable," Britton said. "People are just saying, 'Hey, read the story, good job.' I'm getting emails and Facebook messages from Germany, China, England. People are just clamoring for it."

Starbucks spokeswoman Laurel Harper said the company was glad the brewery agreed to stop using the name.

"This was a respectful request asking Exit 6 to refrain from using the term 'Frappicino,' which differs by only one letter from our 'Frappuccino' product," she said by telephone. (Technically, it differs by two.)

"We always prefer to resolve trademark disputes informally and amicably, and we appreciate them respecting our request to avoid confusion among customers."

[No comment required?]

John

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 04:35 AM

I don't drink beer or coffee so there is no confusion for me!

Maybe if someone had drunk too much beer they might want a coffee the next morning, but they would never confuse the 2 beverages, no matter how much beer they had drunk.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: gnu
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 08:22 AM

A cheque for six bucks. I love it.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Wesley S
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 10:37 AM

Yeah - a check for six bucks. Now they can afford to buy a frappuccino.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 11:40 AM

!What is a frappucino? To me, it seems vaguely sweet and wussy. Isn't a frappe something from an old-time soda fountain? Something with two straws in it and a cherry on top?)

Light-heartedness just can't last in corporate cultures. Starbuck's started out as an easy-going, birkenstocky venture.

"Kids, get your caffeine, your sugar, your whipped cream and your political correctness all in one overpriced drink!" It was a great business plan, but when it started making serious money, it attracted serious people. Always a mistake. I mean, what's going to happen to Starbuck's customer base if the company gets a reputation for being pragmatic? or for being heavyhanded?

I believe the Starbuck's lawyer is throwing her weight around. When you get a trademark, you have to register a spelling and a type face and (maybe) a color. For example, Mattel Toy doesn't just have the trademark 'Barbie,' it has the trademark on 'Barbie' in that vivid shade of pink and in that swoopy typeface. Little girls called Barbie and families named Barbee should have no fear of being told by Mattel that their names are going to have to go.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 12:49 PM

I sort of assumed that the new name, "F-Word," probably stands for "FlippinChino," which is the pronunciation I've heard used by people ordering the Starbucks pseudobeverage.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: gnu
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 01:12 PM

Well, none of it ever made sense to me. I would never pay someone any price to make me a coffee unless I was at a restaurant and it was included in the meal. Even then, I say "No thank you but I could use a bit more icewater."

Here's one for ya. Kissmeass Day, my nephew arrived at SiL's (she has one a them there fancy expensive coffer makers) with 4 coffees in a tray. Now. Think about that. He bought coffee from someone* making minimum wage working at 10AM on Kissmeass??? What is wrong with these people? Nephew included.

* I shall refrain from saying the name of the HUGE Canuck company except to say it was not Tim's.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 02:30 PM

Frappuccino © is a blended beverage for people who want high calories and don't like coffee.

It resembles some of the stuff produced by the old time soda fountain but uses cream instead of ice cream. (The crowd in Starbucks is composed of a few coffee drinkers and a middle-aged group who like sweet, heavy beverages.

The menu lists 22 frappuccinos, and 8 crème fraps.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 03:16 PM

Frappuccino is high priced crap & should be called crappucino, just like the rest of the over-boiled coffees(?) and coffee-like substances one gets at Starbucks. Much better coffee available cheaper elsewhere.

Starbucks also pays $8-$9 an hour while its CEO makes over $9,200 an hour. Another MalWart by another name.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 03:42 PM

Canada pay scale-
Barista- $10.10 base
Shift supervisor- $11.10
Service supervisor- $12.45
Store supervisor- #14.75
CEO Schulz- approx. $46 million

(Apple CEO Cook- $278 million, J. C. Penny CEO $52 million- so what? compensation is for running multi-billion dollar corporations)

MacDonalds
Hourly cook- $11,21
Crew Member- $9.73-$11.00
CEO- $27 million plus unspecified bonus

Alberta minimum wage- $9.75- what your corner coffee shop pays.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: gnu
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 04:00 PM

So, after taxes and such, it takes the better part an hour of serving coffee to afford one. Sick shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 05:34 PM

You betcha, Gnu. But they're just proles, so who gives a shit as long as Starbucks is making big bucks.

Screw 'em - that's the current American Way.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 07:22 PM

Just like the corner grocery or coffee shop is making big bucks- they pay the same or less.
Your bank, pension fund or other repository for your savings has them invested in companies like Apple and Starbucks- would you prefer that they put your money in unsuccessful businesses?

Like it or not, people at the low end of the service scale make no better regardless of the size of the business or its location.

It is the World's way.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 07:55 PM

Notice please that Q has never said he agrees. He has called it the way it is. We all agree that right is that way and left is the other. But when right is that way and wrong is what's left, "Houston, we have had a problem."

Note: that was what was said, not what entered folklore. "Houston, we have had a problem."

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 09:46 PM

There's Cappucino Stout from the Titanic Brewery in England (and another with the same name in California I gather ) but I don't think many people get confused. Not by the name anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: gnu
Date: 01 Jan 14 - 09:46 PM

"would you prefer that they put your money in unsuccessful businesses?"

I would prefer that we looked after one another with compassion and dignity.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Jan 14 - 10:02 AM

just like the corner grocery or coffee shop is making big bucks

So the owner of your corner grocery makes $9K an hour, Q? Must be quite a price markup on his inventory & its a wonder folks can afford to shop there.

would you prefer that they put your money in unsuccessful businesses?

Plenty of responsible and ethical successful businesses out there for pension funds to invest in, Q. without having to resort to outfits like MalWart and Starbucks.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jan 14 - 11:09 AM

Tendency to make inroads in trying to copyright everyday words of the English language.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Jan 14 - 12:41 PM

Walmart and Starbucks are as ethical as any other corporations.

Success pushes the less competitive out. That rule of business seems to disturb some people.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Jan 14 - 12:47 PM

Walmart and Starbucks are as ethical as any other corporations.

Absolute rubbish. Or should I say bullshit?

Success pushes the less competitive out. That rule of business...

Regardless of the practices-moral, legal or not- that give them said success? Now that's just plain bullshit.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Jan 14 - 01:12 PM

The public approves. Nuf said.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Jan 14 - 01:19 PM

Fatuous, Q.

"The Public" approved of the Nazi Party in Germany, too. And of the Joe McCarthy witch hunt. And many more unsavory & immoral things I could mention.

No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.

                H. L. Mencken

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jan 14 - 01:30 PM

"Ethical as some other corporations" might be true. "Ethical as any other" is probably defamatory.

There are still some honest operations.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 Jan 14 - 05:32 PM

A couple of corporate lawyers on separate occasions told groups of us (informally) that:

"Corporate Law has nothing to do with legal or illegal or with moral or immoral.

My job is to tell management -

1. how likely they are to get caught, and

2. how much I'll charge them to get them out of it when they do."

Although both these attorneys were from the same enormous corporation, I suspect the attitude is pretty generally known and accepted in the business world (?)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jan 14 - 01:06 PM

If it had been in the UK the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram would have been approrpiate.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: PHJim
Date: 03 Jan 14 - 02:28 PM

I recall Spike Lee trying to prevent Spike TV from using his first name and trying to assert ownership of the word "Spike".
I think of Spike Jones, Spike Milligan or the little dog with the circle around his eye before Mr. Lee when I hear the word Spike.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Jan 14 - 03:07 PM

Whoop de poo!

Breathes there the little guy with the corner "caf" with soul so dead that he does not dream of a chic place with customers from outside of his area singing his praises.
Soon, if he has the drive, and a gimmick, he will have that place and think of opening a second cross-town. If that comes to pass, he will talk to his bank or friendly moneybags, and open up a franchise system. Two cafes become three, then a dozen scattered across the region;, and the bankers suggests there are openings in China and Slobovia.

In a few years he has a big money tree that needs lawyers, tax
accountants and savvy managers with MBAs from Harvard and UCF. He may even sell stock and hope for a bang-up isp.

Now he can afford that private jet, and get that little haven in Grand Cayman, complete with that little masseuse from Phuket who can gives him that full massage.

Much of his business in run by a corporate group, who, with an eye on stockholders, runs his operation with most employees working at a dollar or two above minimum wage (for which he gets kudos from business societies), a cadre of well-paid lawyers and accountants and specialists in trading on the Markets, and him collecting millions per year.

Think Tim Hortons, Starbucks, Wendys, MacDonalds, and skyrockets in other fields, biggies like Amazon, ebay, Walmart, and comers like Facebook.....

Dream......

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 03 Jan 14 - 03:18 PM

The beauty of iPhones. I'm reading this whilst baking and delivering a crappacino.

Just thought I'd share that with you.

(Seriously, whilst I regularly have Starbucks here in The UK , I have stopped buying their coffee in The USA and Canada when over as it is far too weak for British taste. The Starbucks in Banff Alberta even shouted over " espresso special for our British friend ! ". Sorry. I was grateful to him and said so, but still tasted gutless. )

Lovely story re the brewery. Restores your cynicism in the human race.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: gnu
Date: 03 Jan 14 - 03:42 PM

Hmmm... "Walmart and Starbucks are as ethical as any other corporations."

So, why is Costco paying their employees more than three times as much, providing health care and pensions and kicking THE competions' assesin sales and in the market?

Perhaps the public actually does speak?

Fuck Walmart. The only thing I use them for is when I start a fire in my wood stove with their weekly flier.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Jan 14 - 03:50 PM

I buy coffee beans from Starbucks (good selection) but prefer "Second Cup" coffee if I am near one of their stands.

Musket, you would like Second Cup's Continental Dark beans or possibly Starbucks Ethiopian beans.

Most North Americans prefer medium strength beans and roast. I stick with coffees from the mountains of Chiapas and adjoining Guatemala.

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Jan 14 - 05:31 PM

Musket - Lovely story re the brewery. Restores your cynicism in the human race.

beautifully said

Subject: RE: BS: Six Bucks for Starbucks
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Jan 14 - 06:27 PM

So, Q - you actually believe the Horatio Alger bullshit myth?

God help us all...................................