Woops! Starbucks Ireland asked their Emerald Isle customers, via Twitter, to let them know "what makes you proud to be British" this morning.


The international coffee company was reaching out to its Irish customers as part of a frozen coffee promotion.

So far the response to this silly gaffe has  not been good.

Just an hour after the mistake went live "Starbucks" was trending with Irish twitter users.

Here's a sample of the reaction:

‏@soundmigration tweeted "@StarbucksIE Hey guys, Dont get to concerned> Give it a few weeks and ask how German we will feel #MyFrappuccino".

@Elaine_Mc tweeted "What an absolute FAIL @StarbucksIE. Of all things to call us!! #Insult #ProudToBeIRISH #MyFrappuccino http://bit.ly/JlXOcu".

@TheWholeyTruth tweeted "@StarbucksIE wants you to tweet what makes you proud to be British. Starbucks IRELAND. Well, herp derp to you too. #MyFrappuccino #fail".

The natives do not seems impressed.

It is little wonder that the Seattle coffee company has never taken off Ireland. Far from the US, where there is a Starbucks on every second corner, there are only 17 Starbucks cafes in the whole country.

The Irish Times reports that in 2010 the company made a loss of €3.3 million in Ireland. However in the year to October 2011 they managed to make a profit of €490,000.

We'll see how they do if they continue to make marketing mistakes such as these.