The Koreas | Society | East Asia

Starbucks Korea’s Tank Day Promotion on a Massacre Anniversary Causes a Political Firestorm

The marketing blunder on South Korea’s most solemn democratic anniversary has reignited a decades-old battle over how the country confronts its authoritarian past.

On May 18, the 46th anniversary of the Gwangju Democratization Movement, Starbucks Korea ran a tumbler promotion called “Tank Day.” 

The promotional copy included the phrase “Bang on the Desk” – a phrase instantly recognizable to any Korean adult as an echo of the police cover-up following the 1987 torture and death of democracy activist Park Jong-chul. Park’s interrogators told the public that they had slammed the table and he had died on the spot. Within hours, what the company framed as a routine product launch had become a national scandal.

The May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement remains the most politically charged date on the South Korean calendar. In 1980, Chun Doo-hwan, a military strongman who had seized power through a coup the previous year, deployed tanks and paratroopers into the southwestern city of Gwangju to suppress a civilian uprising, killing hundreds. Official government figures put the death toll at roughly 200, though survivors and civic groups have long maintained the actual number was far higher, with some estimates reaching into the thousands. The exact figure remains contested to this day. Survivors, bereaved families, and much of the Korean public still regard the events as a defining wound in the country’s democratic history. 

To run a “Tank Day” promotion on that date struck millions as an act of brazen desecration.

Starbucks Korea canceled the event and issued multiple apologies. Shinsegae Group Chairman Chung Yong-jin, whose subsidiary E-Mart holds a 67.5 percent stake in Starbucks Korea, dismissed CEO Son Jeong-hyun and a senior marketing executive and issued a personal statement of apology, pledging company-wide ethics education. The headquarters of Starbucks followed with its own statement, calling the incident “unacceptable” and confirming that an internal investigation was underway. 

The apologies did little to contain the fallout. Chung’s past conduct made his contrition unconvincing to many. He had repeatedly used the term myulgong, roughly translating to “crush commies,” as a hashtag on Instagram and had publicly declared that he hates communism, positioning himself as an ideological ally of South Korea’s conservative right. Critics argued that such an organizational culture, set from the top, created conditions in which a promotion this inflammatory could pass through four to five layers of internal approval without being flagged. Civil society groups filed criminal complaints against Chung and former CEO Son with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, alleging violations of the Special Act on the May 18 Democratization Movement and criminal defamation. The Seoul Police Agency’s Serious Crime Investigation Unit has since taken over the case, consolidating complaints filed in both Seoul and Gwangju.

Facing a police investigation triggered by civil society complaints, Shinsegae announced on May 24 that Chung would deliver a public apology in person on May 26 at the Josun Palace Hotel in Seoul – which will be his first public appearance since the scandal broke days prior. His apology is expected to include a full acknowledgment of personal responsibility and a commitment to corporate social accountability alongside the release of the group’s own internal investigation findings. 

The controversy rapidly metastasized into electoral politics. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he could not comprehend how such a campaign was possible and called for appropriate moral, administrative, legal, and political responsibility.

On May 23, Lee escalated his criticism further, linking Tank Day to a separate Starbucks Korea promotion from two years prior. On April 16, 2024, the company had launched a new product called the “Siren Classic Mug.” That day, the country was commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Sewol ferry disaster. The siren, a mythological creature whose song lured sailors to their deaths, has been Starbucks’ logo since its founding in 1971 but Democratic Party lawmaker Jung Jin-wook argued that deploying the imagery on that particular date amounted to a deliberate provocation. Quoting Jung’s post on X, Lee called the conduct “the depraved behavior of vicious merchants” and said he hoped the connection was not intentional. Adding that no one wearing a human face could do such a thing, Lee also warned that the pattern of behavior – mocking victims of state violence and national tragedies on their memorial dates........

© The Diplomat