Marketing Pitfall
In September 2000, the opening of Starbucks in Beijing's Forbidden City, also known as the Palace Museum, brewed storm in China, with the outraged local media reporting that 70 percent of people would rather not sip the American chain's frappucinos in the footsteps of the Son of Heaven.
For many locals, they were incensed by the U.S. chain's opening in the ancient home of China's emperors as an act of American economic and cultural domination in one of their proudest national monuments.
To weary tourists visiting the Palace Museum, Starbucks' tiny store amid the sprawling majesty of the imperial-era Forbidden City is a welcome chance to rest with a frothy latte.
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