Laura's Starbuck's Ads

Starbuck's is a worldwide brand. I randomly chose the UK and the US because I knew both adverts would be in English. What I found surprised me. The first ad is from the UK. The image is of many cups with the word latte being put down. Suddenly, it turns into a friendly, cool cartoon. The voice over says they will start using the customer's name instead of the drink name. Finally, if you come in by noon on a certain day, you'll get a free latte. The catchphrase is, "We're Starbucks. Nice to meet you." The focus of the ad is on personalizing the customer and you get a real sense of the individual. The announcer sounds polite and kind. They're giving away the coffee as a token of goodwill. There's no catch. The second ad is from the US. Starbuck's green letters ask questions about the community and the country. The message is that we should all vote. The promise is that if you vote, you'll get a free drink. The idea behind this is that the group is more important than the individual and that you earn what you get. The final statement is, "It's bigger than coffee." The reason I was surprised by this ad was that it seemed like the American ad was more formal while the British ad was more fun, which is the opposite of the stereotype. If I were to use this in my classroom, I would play the videos without sound first, making sure to cut the video before it showed the .co.uk and ask the students to give me the main idea of the two ads. Then I would have the students discuss which country they thought the two adverts were from. Then the class could vote on it.