{"id":263113,"date":"2026-06-02T01:30:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenbizt.com\/en\/news\/uncategorized\/2026\/06\/02\/starbucks-korea-faces-backlash-over-tank-day-marketing-controversy-2\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T01:31:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:31:12","slug":"starbucks-korea-faces-backlash-over-tank-day-marketing-controversy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenbizt.com\/en\/news\/social\/2026\/06\/02\/starbucks-korea-faces-backlash-over-tank-day-marketing-controversy-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Starbucks Korea Faces Backlash Over &#8216;Tank Day&#8217; Marketing Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Translation result.<\/p>\n<div>\n<figure class=\"photo-layout\" image photo_302532 float-center data-idxno=\"302532\" data-type=\"photo\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"[Seoul=Newsis]\" reporter kim seon-woong \u2014 starbucks korea said it will temporarily relax its starbucks card refund rules for two weeks starting june 1, allowing refunds without conditions even if customers have used 60% or more of the card balance. the photo shows a starbucks store in central seoul on may 31, 2026. mangusta@newsis.com src=\"https:\/\/cdn-union.tenbizt.com\/contents\/crawler-dev\/image\/2026\/06\/CP-2024-0042\/image-df16768c-e656-4ad2-aad4-f212b765d30e.jpeg\"><figcaption>\n   [Seoul=Newsis] Reporter Kim Seon-woong \u2014 Starbucks Korea said it will temporarily relax its Starbucks Card refund rules for two weeks starting June 1, allowing refunds without conditions even if customers have used 60% or more of the card balance. The photo shows a Starbucks store in central Seoul on May 31, 2026. mangusta@newsis.com<br \/>\n  <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Amid controversy over Starbucks Korea&#8217;s \\&#8221;Tank Day\\&#8221; marketing\u2014accused of belittling the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement\u2014current employees gave the company its lowest ratings for management in internal reviews.<\/p>\n<p>Industry sources said Blind, the anonymous workplace community, analyzed evaluations from 568 Starbucks Korea employees submitted between January of last year and May of this year and found the company&#8217;s overall score was 2.74 out of 5.<\/p>\n<p>Among the five survey subcategories, the management rating was the weakest at 1.81.<\/p>\n<p>Other scores remained in the mid-to-high 2s: pay and benefits 2.76; corporate culture 2.58; career development 2.52; and work\u2013life balance 2.49.<\/p>\n<p>Employee interest spiked after the controversy. Searches for \\&#8221;Starbucks Korea\\&#8221; on Blind jumped from 2,393 in April to 91,080 in May\u2014a 38-fold increase. The number of unique users searching for the company rose from 944 to 46,870 over the same period, nearly a 50-fold increase.<\/p>\n<p>In May, the most common related search term was \\&#8221;boycott\\&#8221; (1,038 mentions), followed by \\&#8221;government\\&#8221; (646), \\&#8221;Jung Yong-jin\\&#8221; (505), \\&#8221;partner\\&#8221; (453), and \\&#8221;store\\&#8221; (452).<\/p>\n<p>Starbucks Korea ran a tumbler promotion on May 18\u2014the anniversary of the May 18 Democratization Movement\u2014using the phrases \\&#8221;Tank Day\\&#8221; and \\&#8221;Bang it on the desk!\\&#8221; in its marketing copy, prompting accusations that the campaign trivialized the movement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Starbucks Korea faces backlash for &#8216;Tank Day Marketing&#8217; as employee ratings reveal low scores for management and overall satisfaction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/cdn-union.tenbizt.com\/contents\/crawler-dev\/thumbnail\/2026\/06\/CP-2024-0042\/thumb-b2294d60-f942-4004-a406-a18d07fcc274.jpg","footnotes":""},"categories":[278100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-263113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Starbucks Korea Faces Backlash Over &#039;Tank Day&#039; 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