Starbucks Coffee Australia Mug and Jumping the Shark

As promised in my previous post about my new Sydney Starbucks mug here is it’s partner, the Starbucks Australia Mug!

It obviously features a lot of stylistic similarities to the Sydney mug which is great (I always like themed sets). In place of the Sydney Harbour we get a boomerang and a kangaroo. They’ve obviously gone for the stereotypical view of Australia which normally I’m against but since the City Mugs feature…. well the cities, I can see why they went for the country look.

What was absolutely fantastic was when I was filming the video for the Starbucks Australia Mug in Darling Harbour a street performer somewhere behind me started playing a didgeridoo! Talk about great timing! Wasn’t at all planned but very much a win!

Something I noticed when shopping in Sydney was that all the Starbucks were selling not just the Australia and Sydney mugs but also the mugs from other Australian cities! While this might be great for some people I kind of think this ruins the joy of collecting as one of the main reasons I, and I’m sure many others, buy the mugs is to remember their trip to that city or country. Buying them all at one place and having never been to the actual place feels a lot like cheating.

Starbucks COMPLETELY Missing the Point

Since I’ve been back in Tokyo I’ve seen that Japan is now doing the same thing by selling all the mugs in one location and I really hate it. It just destroys the whole point of having location based merchandise. I hope Starbucks stops this soon as it really has the potential of destroying something special. 🙁

What do you think about Starbucks selling City Mugs all in one location? Has Starbucks jumped the shark?