Starbucks' Zombie Frappuccino Has Earned Mixed Reviews From Twitter
Coffeehouse chain Starbucks on Thursday added the ominously named Zombie Frappuccino to its menu through Oct. 31. The drink is inspired by a holiday favorite treat of caramel-dipped apples.
The green and purple Halloween-inspired drinks are sold in the U.S. and Canada and have a tart green apple flavor.
To little surprise, the drink has generated mixed reviews.
Some Twitter users were a bit more forgiving.
Several others provided positive feedback.
Others poked fun at Starbucks' new drink.
There has even been feedback on YouTube, including a review made by Angie Eats It All. "Oh boy, not such a good first impression — I got to be honest. I expected it to be a super sour and tart apple, it's not. It's a mild apple flavor."
YouTuber Maxwell Glick said "the taste is really not that bad" and pointed out that it contains "a lot of sugar, for sure."
"When brainstorming a new Frappuccino flavor for this Halloween, we started by thinking about a Halloween party and monster mash," Jennica Robinson, a member of the Starbucks beverage development team, said in a news release Thursday. "We had already invited Frankenstein and vampires to the party, so we came up with another monster that could join the bash.
"We thought about what you'd serve at a Halloween party, and we settled on dipped caramel apples. It has a tart green apple favor balanced with a smooth, sweet caramel."
Starbucks is no stranger to experimenting with the atypical coffee drink, including the widely discussed Unicorn Frappuccino. The blended crème drink, which debuted in April, was panned by many customers for being too tart and sugary. Starbucks' marketing tactics for the colorful drink still proved to be successful.
One method of the Unicorn Frappuccino's success was the use of social media.
"National Unicorn Day was celebrated on April 9th, which caused hundreds of trending hashtags announcing #NationalUnicornDay," Heather DeSantis, a Public Relations specialist, told Forbes in April. "It is not confirmed that Starbucks capitalized on this national awareness day — but honestly, there is no way this could be a coincidence.
"People were still obsessing over unicorns, so when Starbucks announced their new drink, people were foaming at the mouth to get in on the unicorn action."
Like the Zombie Frappuccino, social media users shared their thoughts on the drink as soon as it debuted. The buzz ultimately led to a spike in sales, which Business Insider cited as producing "increased checks from regulars, but also opened up a new audience for Starbucks."
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