How do you measure success?

But after spending $20 million in marketing, Lions Gate has taken in only $17 million at the box office. Lions Gate executives privately say the white viewers they were counting on Starbucks to deliver never showed up in great number.

...

Starbucks maintains that the campaign resonated with customers, although it did not conduct polls to determine how many people saw the movie.

"How we measure our success is not always in terms of box-office receipts but our customers' reception," said Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment, who will remain in Seattle.

[ Starbucks Hires Music Veteran - Los Angeles Times ]

Starbucks is apparently making so much money off coffee that they can count a tremendous failure as a success. I had hoped that Starbucks had learned its lesson, because I go in for coffee, sometimes food, never CDs, or marketing, or lifestyle, or any of the other crap they're trying to shove on me.