Dumb Starbucks

There's been an interesting "event" happening in LA that has a lot of people standing in line, and scratching their heads.

It's a complete mock Starbucks but named "Dumb Starbucks," logo and all.  With no announcement and no fanfare ... just a single tweet ... it caused quite a stir as people just instinctively stood in line for the promotions and to get in on the action.

And of course the free drinks including Dumb Frapaccinos.  There were even Dumb CDs ala the real thing.

So what's up?

Turns out that it was a parody created by a comedian from Comedy Central ... content if you will for a future episode, or so it seems.  The problem is that the Board of Health shut it down for lack of a proper permit and the real Starbucks brand started formulating a response.

So what's the take away here?

First of all, don't mess with a brand.  It's not for play, and you may rattle a lot of people in the process.  Evidently the "parody" play doesn't necessarily give permission to invade trademarks.

Second of all, how cool is that to reach the kind of pop culture status that you can actually have people form lines to figure out what's going on with your brand ... how cool is that?  There are not that many brands that not only would someone mock, but that anyone would notice. 

So while this one escapade certainly seems a bit odd and mysterious, it was fascinating to watch it play out in the public space.

What's your experience?  JIM.