Starbucks vs. McDonald's

So, among other mega-conglomerates, the Seattle area is home to Starbuck's HQ. Well, in the last few months, McDonald's has started serving (pretty yummy) coffee shop-style products as well - lattes, cappucino, espresso, iced coffees. As soon as they rolled out this new section of the menu, they launched a full-on attack on Starbucks. There were commercials of people sitting in a Starbuck's-looking coffee shop finally realizing that they were paying too much for mediocre coffee. Snapping out of it, kicking off pretentious clothing and over-pronouncing words and running with glee to their nearest McDonald's. Those commercials were great too watch. The latest phase of advertising has been about billboards lining the highway very near Starbucks HQ (and elsewhere in the area that read

Four dollars for coffee is dumb.

.

There's also my favorite commercial where a woman comes up to the counter and rattles off a super long coffee shop style order (Come on, we've all done it - "I'll have a vente half-decaf skinny vanilla latte slightly foamy please"), then she realizes she's at McDonald's and rejoices in the fact that all she has to order is a medium coffee. Hilarious.

Now, since I think Starbucks coffee tastes burnt and is over-priced, I've really enjoyed this little media blitz. But, Starbuck's is beginning to get embarrased. Even though their media people keep saying that they will not join in the pettiness of McDonald's ad campaign, they've been releasing statements everyday saying that they think the campaign is juvenile and that Starbucks does not resort to tit-for-tat advertising.

Only in Seattle, would news of a Starbucks/McDonald's designer coffee war be a headline in the news even though we're in a massive global financial crisis, at least two wars and political corruption exposes.