Starbucks Makes Big Bet On Day After Super Bowl: Data Shows The Move May Have Won

Starbucks Corporation SBUX is one of many companies that benefitted from Super Bowl LIX’s record viewership on Sunday Feb. 9.

What Happened: Instead of airing a Super Bowl commercial, the restaurant and coffee giant introduced "Starbucks Monday." The Feb. 10 event allowed Starbucks Rewards members to get a free 12 oz. hot or iced brewed coffee at U.S. locations.

"No matter who wins Sunday, we can all win Monday," Starbucks said ahead of the promotion.

Over 100 million people watched Super Bowl LIX and many of those viewers returned to their regularly scheduled jobs the following day. Calls to make the day after the Super Bowl a holiday have risen in recent years and Starbucks was the latest company to take advantage of the attention on this day.

Starbucks investors will have to wait until second-quarter financial results to hear how well the promotion went over and how many additional rewards members were added thanks to dangling free coffee in front of them. Until then, data from Placer.ai shows the event may have been a success.

Visits to Starbucks locations in the U.S. were up 11.3% to their daily average from Jan. 1, 2024 to Feb. 10, 2025 according to Placer.ai.

Compared to the company's average Monday, the data was even better. Visits to Starbucks U.S. locations were up 26.3% compared to the Monday average from Jan. 1, 2024 to Feb. 10, 2025, according to the data.

"The ‘Starbucks Monday' promotion achieved several key objectives. First, it significantly increased Monday visit counts versus recent months. Second, by offering the promotion exclusively to Starbucks Rewards members, it likely contributed to loyalty program growth, creating new opportunities for customer engagement through the app. Lastly, it reintroduced lapsed customers to some of Starbucks' early changes under CEO Brian Niccol," Placer.ai Head of Analytical Research R.J. Hottovy said.

Dunkin’, a Starbucks rival, also offered a free coffee promotion, but only on Super Bowl Sunday and at specific locations across the Philadelphia region, South Jersey and Delaware.

Read Also: Starbucks Posts Earnings Beat: New CEO Will ‘Fix The Business The Right Way,’ Analyst Says

Why It's Important: Starbucks Monday was likely a marketing and promotional play by the company to get bodies into the store.

By offering something for free, the hope is that people still spend money on other items while visiting the Starbucks restaurants.

Making the promotion an exclusive for rewards members likely will lead to additional member sign-ups. Those members will now get rewards promotions and be added to the company's database of users to sell products to.

Starbucks recently reported first-quarter financial results with revenue and earnings per share each beating Street consensus estimates.

The company ended the first quarter with 34.6 million loyalty rewards members, up 1% year-over-year.

Starbucks saw comparable store sales fall 4% in North America in the first quarter.

New Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol praised the efforts of the company's turnaround that he said was seeing a positive response.

"We believe this is the fundamental change in strategy needed to solve our underlying issues, restore confidence in our brand and return the business to sustainable, long-term growth," Niccol said.

Starbucks Monday may be only one day in the quarter, but the effort to boost sales, foot traffic and rewards members is a catalyst for investors to watch.

Price Action: Starbucks stock trades at $113.10 on Tuesday versus a 52-week trading range of $71.55 to $113.47. The stock is up 21% over the last year.

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