By Bethany Roa

November 2025

Are You a Bear Hunter?

It’s worked (for now). Starbucks is not new to hyping up a new drink, a new release, a new anything, but you have to ask yourself, “Did they figure out how to get people in the door?” Yes. Starbucks produced a limited quantity of the new holiday “It” item, a 20oz. Starbucks Bearista cup, creating chaos and a price surge of the cup. At the time of this post, the cup is going for $1,000 on eBay and there have been physical fights in-store. So, why did this hype work?

It’s Q4 of another year where Starbucks investors and shareholders are looking for a win after their earnings were down, mass layoffs and a LOT of bad press with boycotts pushing earnings lower than last year. They saw a strategy that’s been working for well over a year now – limited edition beverage merchandise. We’ve all seen the craze of the Stanley cups and influencers pushing the limited-edition models of the cups. It’s a cup. Starbucks could have easily produced millions of the bear cups, but it would lose the urgency, the need, of getting to the store and getting onto social media immediately holding your prized item as a fisherman presents their trophy fish.

Starbucks chose not to make more cups. The hype enticed thousands of people to wait in line, rush to stores ­— all in the colder months of the year. So, what happens when you’ve been in line hours and miss out on a bear? You’re cold and you buy a drink, food or whatever else is in Starbucks. They were smart, they got you physically into the store where you needed a warm drink with a higher margin than a Bearista cup to warm you up.

We work in marketing, so sometimes it’s hard to see past the product and just think about the overall strategy. Urgency always works with commerce. The need to be a part of the crowd. The elite crowd that is drinking an iced latte from a bear-shaped cup. The urgency to find and hold on to the purple Princess Diana Beanie Baby. The urgency to sprint through Target to get the limited-edition Valentine’s Day Stanley cups. I can’t answer why cups seem to be the product of our times, but I can answer that the bear will fade away come 2026.

Is Your Brand More Than a Cup?

At Rasor, we are storytellers. We listen to our clients explain their history, their passion, their stories, and then we create a strategy and plan to tell the client’s story. We never counsel our clients to be anything that they’re not. Your audience knows when you’re not being authentic. Social media yearns for authenticity with its algorithm. Google Analytics rate your site by how authentic your content is. So, do you want your brand to feel inauthentic or homogenized? No. Every brand and story is unique and should be told in its own way. Your brand shouldn’t feel like one of the same.

You don’t want to be the panicked brand in the line at Starbucks hoping to get the cup that takes you to the next level. It won’t work. It’s a temporary moment of fitting in amongst your peers. You’ll have a stronger audience for a moment, but not the loyalist audience you were hoping for.

Starbucks has set themselves up now for the urgent need to create and produce to keep the investors from biting at their heels. They’ll have to meet this Q4 surge over and over again until the loyalists come back (if they do), to feel the constant need of being relevant and fitting in.

Has Starbucks lost its authenticity? A company that started in the 70s selling coffee beans is holding on with a bear cup. Time will tell, but if you want to stand out, don’t be a bear hunter.