5 Things We Can Take From That Unicorn Frappuccino Craze

This Sunday marks the sour end of the whimsical craze that started this past Wednesday.   For 5 days that simply magical purple and blue beverage has consumed our Instagram feed, dominated twitter trends, and pissed off quite a few Facebook divas users.  But through all the chaos of glee, gluttony, and wrath comes five unanticipated concepts we can grow from.

1. Surprise!!!  Starbucks Frappuccinos Contain Sugar

I personally have not purchased a neon drink that was praised for its nutritious value to begin with so the shock over the high sugar value really came as no surprise to me.    The same people that liked to post selfies sipping on their fav Java Chip Frapps were now bombarding my feed with infographics like the one that compared one Venti Unicorn Frapp to 3 Snickers bar.  Then came the chain reaction of Keto crazers who protested the beverage, as if one drink from Starbucks would absolutely crush their entire life.   Unless you are part of the 9.3% of Americans that are diabetic, one drink will not cause irreparable harm.

So where does the Unicorn Frapp really stand in the Starbucks sugar line up?

www.shopgrilanonymous.com

2. Limited Time =  Limited Quantity

The frustration is real, but true aggression is not necessary.  When hearing the term “limited time” we as consumers need to really read this as “limited supply.”  Plan accordingly, and try to grab your piece of the pie early, because as we learned this past Thursday, once it’s gone…it’s gone for good.  It’s easy to say as an uninvolved party that they should over supply the stores, expecting the largest crowds; I mean serving customers sounds better than turning away customers, financially speaking.   But in reality there are many risks that lay in something like this.

First there is the risk that what seems like your gangbusters idea may come out to be quite the flop.  Let’s look at it this way, how many times have you written an essay thinking you aced it and instead it came back with a C?  Or how about wrote that FB post you just knew would fly viral but instead not even your own mom shared it? (no offense mom)   Supply is a cost, should this unicorn beverage not be successful, the store is sitting on unusable product, and unusable product comes out of the bottom end.

Second risk would be investing in a beverage you know is disgusting.  No really, there was no way that the big wigs were not fully aware just by simply reading the list of flavors that this could come back to slap them in the face.  They had to gamble that the gossip of how putrid it was would not be publicized on You Tube or Facebook Live before the magical images on Instagram lured Millenials and Gen Z’ers in without question.  Which is a great segue to my next point…

3. Half of Us Will Buy Anything that Says Unicorn, No Questions Asked

When I read the ingredients I began to gag immediately, but of course I am not a fan of fruity flavors.  I was hoping for more of a chocolaty vanilla blend of the Unicorn Hot Chocolates that were all over Instagram this past winter. Instead Starbucks embraced the idea of color and Spring and went with a more fruity blend.   My daughters of course went nuts over the drawing of the Unicorn, so I let them split a tall, embracing myself for the sea of mom shaming that would most likely result after sharing that I had allowed my kids any sugar.  Better you than me, I thought, as I took a quick sour sip and then handed it to my toddler who guzzled it with no hesitations.

It surprised me the number of people shocked be the taste.  Did they not ask?  Did they not look it up?   But at the end of the day, if you thought it was disgusting, that’s okay.   At least you can say you have been there, you have tried that.   No regrets.

4.  The Other Half Have a Real Grudge Against Unicorns

Maybe some people just hate a craze.  Perhaps they lack any true originality so have to make themselves special by lashing out.  It could be as simple as they did not have enough Lisa Frank as a kid, but whatever the reason the whining and complaining about “why are people so excited about a drink” got a bit old.

 I’m excited because it’s fun…joy killer.

5. Life is Too Short to Not Be Magical

unicorn-2007266_960_720All of this is to say, let’s stop taking ourselves so seriously.   The Unicorn Frappuccino was something that was designed to offer a sensation of whimsy and wonderment.  Like a rainbow piercing through our frustrations so that we could, if only for the 5 seconds of soaking in those pink and purple sprinkles magically scattered like pixie dust, feel a sense of hope and possibility.

  • For five minutes a week I challenge you to allow yourself to forget about calories, or sugar intake.
  • Put off hesitation; embrace an opportunity to try something new.  Don’t be afraid to hate it, that’s okay, disappointment is part of the journey to learning who we are.
  • Spend less energy holding others back from their bliss, and spend more time discovering your own.
  • To live is such a wonderful adventure, and we should allow ourselves the time to immerse ourselves in the possibilities of what could be…even if it is as outlandish as riding a unicorn over a rainbow.
7 RetailersClosing Shop-2.png

Enjoyed This?  Pin it!

Shopgirl Must Know!

  • What will you allow yourself for five minutes of adventure this week?
  • Did You Try the Unicorn Frappuccino?  What did you think?

screen-shot-2016-12-08-at-2-59-23-pm

Instagram. Twitter. Facebook.

Over the Moon Link Party

All content of this site is property of the author.  Please do not copy or redistribute without permission.  You are free to share on social media as long as you credit the author.

34 thoughts on “5 Things We Can Take From That Unicorn Frappuccino Craze”

  1. scr4pl80 says:
    Reply

    I’ll have to ask my daughter who works at Starbucks how the craze affected her, although she is in college so only works on the weekends and may not have experienced much of it first hand. I love your 5 minute idea! Thanks for stopping by my little blog! Have a great Sunday.

    Liked by 2 people

  3. D. Parker says:
    Reply

    Vaguely heard about this fad, mostly from blog posts like this. I don’t drink anything from any of these type stores, but the advice, “Spend less energy holding others back from their bliss, and spend more time discovering your own.” is magical. Thank you for sharing and hope this week is treating you kindly. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

  6. jadoreledecor says:
    Reply

    Well this craze just zipped by me. I had no idea it was a “thing”. But anything with that many colors HAS to be loaded with sugar. And why would anyone be looking for nutrition in Starbucks anyway? I see it as a place to treat myself to a ton of calories. Ha!

    Liked by 2 people

  8. Andrea Broom says:
    Reply

    I haven’t tried it, I’m not a huge huge fan of frappucinos, I like ice tea or cold brew coffee a lot. I know that the look is probably what gets peoples attention more. Not my cup of drink I totally get what people like it.

    Liked by 2 people

  9. thinkmag says:
    Reply

    Glad I didn’t fall prey to this @ Starbucks…lol. I can’t believe the nutritional breakdown. Thanks for posting that. My birthday is next week and the weather is warming up. The last thing I want to do is increase my weight 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Tony Lozzi says:
    Reply

    I, like you, don’t really revel in fruit flavors, particularly from a place like Starbucks. That said, it IS a very pretty drink, and from what I understand, far more painstaking to craft than most drinks at SB.

    I still wouldn’t get one, but it looks good.

    Liked by 2 people

  11. D'Shaunte says:
    Reply

    Spend more time finding your own bliss whether than killings other joy. That is a good quote. I am a Starbucks girl and I did not try the drink based on flavors, but I thought about it because as you said. Anything that says unicorn catches my eye!

    Liked by 2 people

  18. Pingback: Weekend Rundown #8 – Shop Girl Anonymous

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

w
Cancel

Connecting to %s