• October 30, 2004
  • Posted by Marc

The Vacuum Cleaner Takes on Starbucks


/>
This came in recently from our friends href="http://thevacuumcleaner.co.uk/">The Vacuum Cleaner in England:
/>
“Starbucks is cracking down on those who dare to disagree with their
vision of uniform sanitised cities, where creativity simply consists of adding
caramel syrup to a decaf skinny latte.

After having had infamous
political prankster Reverend Billy(http://www.revbilly.com) banned from every
Starbucks coffee shop in the world, they are now trying to take the domain name
http://www.starbuckscoffee.co.uk off British art activist, The Vacuum Cleaner. 
The spoof website shows subversive consumers how to subvert the brand by merely
filling in a few choice letters on the Starbucks logo and magically transforming
it into the words “Fuck Off”. Starbucks says it “tarnishes” their brand and
“goodwill”. We say: “tough shit.”

We will defend our right to dissent
and protect the uniqueness of our neighbourhoods against the corporate
rollercoaster that transforms them into soulless shopping malls. We want to
protect and enact our right to denounce a multinational which, despite its PR-
led social policy, fuels the impoverishment of coffee growers everywhere and
while sponsoring “Earth Day” continues producing more rubbish in the USA than
the entire city of New York.

Save Our Starbucks (S.O.S) has been set
up to show Starbucks that the Vacuum Cleaner is not alone in his outrage. You
can help the campaign in both the virtual and the real worlds by taking part in
these easy DIY actions:

1) Domino Domain Disruption Effect - Go to a
domain name registration service such as www.oneandone.co.uk, think of a
suitably subversive anti Starbucks domain name, register it and point it to
www.starbuckscoffee.co.uk. (Thousands of silly domain names are still available:


www.fuckstarbucks.com,
www.starbucksfuckoff.com,
/>www.starbuckswilldestroyyourlocalneighbourhood.co.uk,
/>www.weareallstarbuckscoffee.co.uk ,
/>www.canyouseethefuckoffinstarbuckscoffee.com,
/>www.starbucksatemymonkey.net, etc

Please note: If they try to take
the domain name off you like they have for The Vacuum Cleaner, you will just get
a letter that you only have to ignore, the domain name will be taken off you,
Starbucks will have shelled out huge lawyers fees, end of story (not bad seeing
that buying a domain such as .tk are free)!

2) Solidarity Links - You
could also help by increasing the traffic on www.starbuckscoffee.co.uk by adding
a prominent link from your website. Banners available on the website.

/>3) And last but not least don’t forget to visit your local multinational
coffee shop armed with a green pen and transform as many Starbucks logos as you
can find - remember the rage in beverage!

Kindly,

/>s.o.s

sorry for any multiple mails, forward at will.

/>http://www.starbuckscoffee.co.uk
howard@starbuckscoffee.co.uk