[Reportage] Starbucks in Korea close shop early for sensitivity training after ‘Tank Day’ fiasco

A sign taped up on the door of the coffee shop said, “We are holding a brand value workshop to remind workers of the Starbucks mission and to educate them in historical attitudes and social sensitivity.” Thirsty customers unaware that Starbucks’ Korea branches were closing early had to head elsewhere. “I guess it’s because of Tank Day,” one said after perusing the sign. At 2:45 pm on Monday, workers at a Starbucks branch in Sinyongsan, in Seoul’s Yongsan District, were busily notifying customers about the early closure. After all the customers had gone, the workers cleaned the store, swept the floor and doffed their corporate caps and aprons. With the store lights off, they sat around a large monitor hooked up to a laptop computer to watch a lecture about democracy. Starbucks branches around the country closed their doors at 3 pm on Monday to give staff a history lesson following public outrage over the “Tank Day” marketing campaign for its “Tank” tumbler series. The campaign appeared to mock the Gwangju Massacre and slain activist Park Jong-cheol with a callback to his death by torture in the phrase “Thwack it on the desk!” This was the first time that Starbucks stores nationwide have closed early since the coffee shop franchise began operations in Korea in 1999. Starbucks had announced last week that it would carry out history education for all staff and executives. Monday’s “brand value workshop” consisted of recorded lectures given by Oh Je-yeon, a professor of contemporary Korean history at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, and Koo Jeong-woo, a professor of sociology at the same school, to Emart executives and employees at Starbucks Korea’s headquarters on June 17. Chung Yong-jin, the chairman of Shinsegae Group, the parent company of Emart, will watch the lectures ahead of a meeting of the presidents of the group’s affiliates on Wednesday. According to Shinsegae, Oh’s lecture used Article 1 of the Republic of Korea Constitution as a standard by which to view contemporary Korean history and outlined that disparaging Korea’s democratization movement harms the country’s core values and identity. In his lecture, he reportedly laid out that companies are obliged to respect the universal values of human rights and peace, grounded in a correct understanding of history. In his lecture, Koo reportedly stressed the need for companies to think outside of their internal structures that revolve around speed and sales and instead make an effort to understand social conflicts, sensitive and painful histories, and taboos. While acknowledging the need f