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“Now that we’re in our twentieth season of Starbucks card, the digital world has become a bigger part of customers’ lives,” said Rachel Heiss, who leads the out-of-store Starbucks card program. Today, Starbucks eGifts can now also be sent via text using an iPhone or through the Starbucks app. By Valentine’s Day that same year, Starbucks rolled out eGift, allowing customers to send the gift of Starbucks by email. In January 2011, there was another leap forward with the national launch of mobile payment through the Starbucks card Mobile app, turning any iPhone into a Starbucks card.
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Now any Starbucks card could be used to enroll in the program, where members, earn Stars on purchases that can be redeemed for Rewards like free food, drinks, and more. The original cards, with a specific dollar amount loaded on to them, gained the benefits of a loyalty card when the Starbucks Rewards program launched in 2008. The technology behind the Starbucks card has evolved even more than the cards themselves. You can feel that magic between these two characters.” Evolution of Gifting “That’s how Brian and Louie evolved – it starts with this cute snowy scene and then you add in a moment of friendship and sweetness. “Our brand has so much joy in it,” O’Brien said. Their bromance has been featured with a card each year ever since. In 2013 he was joined by his avian sidekick, dubbed Louie in honor of the St. He quickly became a customer favorite and has returned each year, often sporting a cozy scarf and a smile. Perhaps the most beloved character is a snowman that named Brian, who made his Starbucks card debut in 2010 with a cup of coffee nestled improbably in one stick-hand. “These cards have become such a meaningful way to tell stories and share those holiday moments with each other.” “The Starbucks card has become the perfect encapsulation of our brand, something that people hold dear to their hearts,” O’Brien said. There’s also a gingerbread man named Jerry, a sweet annual addition to the Starbucks holiday card collection since 2015. There was also dog in the backseat looking out the window with a smile, the first featured pooch in what would become a veritable menagerie of animals on cards. In 2005, there was the first holiday tree, strapped atop an old-fashioned sedan. The cards also began to tell tales of their own. Today, they are so popular, about one-in-seven Americans receive a Starbucks card as a gift each holiday. More cards meant more designs, which could range from the kitschy (pink flamingos in Santa hats?) to edgy limited-edition metal cards. In 2014, Starbucks cards launched in China with its Lunar New Year series, and also expanded its card offerings to more than 100 holiday designs in U.S. The company expanded its holiday collection starting in 2010, when it added the first Hanukkah and Kwanzaa cards. Motifs for the early Starbucks gift cards started out pretty traditionally, with just one or two designs each holiday season for the first several years. The card designs are something that makes your heart warm.” When Brian met Louie “It’s such an expressive part of our brand, and one with so much emotion baked into it. “The Starbucks card is the most fun thing to work on,” said Meghan O’Brien, senior designer in the Starbucks Creative Studio. They have been made with alternative materials like wood and recycled burlap coffee bags, adorned with Swarovski crystals, cut into festive shapes, and even dangled from a keychain. Designs range from vintage to modern, with illustration styles from the cartoon-like line art to bold vector graphics. More than 1,100 Starbucks gift card designs have been released over the nearly 20 years of the program, each one a canvas for the Starbucks in-house creative team. For just a few dollars, customers could give a meaningful gift to friends and colleagues, and the cards helped spread the word about Starbucks as its number of stores grew from 3,500 to the more than 32,000 around the world today.īeyond convenience, there was something more: a joyful expression of the holiday conveyed by the cards themselves. It became one of the most popular holiday gifts of the season, selling nearly 200,000 in the first week alone. Although gift cards had been around since 1994 as an alternative to paper gift certificates, Starbucks was among the first major retailers to offer a reloadable card.
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When the first Starbucks gift cards debuted in stores in November 2001, they actually came with a tiny owner’s manual with instructions and a toll-free phone number.
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