Low-Cost Impressive PR

    As we read about food and oil prices and observe people's buying behaviors—filling up only when necessary and cutting down on our Starbucks runs—it's interesting to observe as well what companies are doing to keep our business. Clearly, they're trying to figure out exactly how much they can get away with when it comes to passing on the costs to consumers. They've got to make it up somewhere, right?
    That's where goodwill comes in. Here's my story on that and why all the money in the world that a company spends on advertising won't necessarily have as much of an impact as what can spontaneously happen when you're trying to, say, pay for your cup of coffee. I went into Starbucks the other morning. I'm not an addict, but I'm sure my adrenaline kicks in when I walk through the door. Somebody ELSE is making my coffee for one thing plus it's going to have some more flavor (my drink: tall, skinny cinnamon dolce latte), so it's a double treat.
    As I took out my debit and Starbucks cards to hand to the cashier a man showed up beside me. Normally, I don't like to take up more time than necessary, because I might get that eye-roll thing from the people behind me, but when I got up to the counter no one else was around, something I immediate noticed, because normally it's very crowded. So I was thinking, wow, even here people are watching what they spend. Anyway, I wanted to put more dough on my Starbucks card and wasn't sure how much was already on the card. I sort of glanced over to gauge this guy's patience and realized immediately that he had very little. He was visibly annoyed and was throwing me one disgusted look after another. The cashier looked at me, at him, back at me and this sort of went on, because no one really wanted to say what was really on everyone's mind. Then the other baristas noticed and I felt like a million bucks, as if I'd been on the playground alone, about to be mauled by the school bully only to have the entire school show up to save me.
    And then something interesting happened: the man stormed off to his table and as I began to pay for my drink the cashier said, "No, this is on the house, because he was so nasty to you." "What?!" I answered. And she said, "Just say thanks." And I did and I'll go back.
    No press release was written or distributed. No one was interviewed by a big news outlet. A special event had not been planned, but some of the very best and cost-effective PR had just happened.
    I was impressed.