NCT Suffered Huge Losses After Collaboration with Starbucks
After SM Entertainment announced NCT’s collaboration with Starbucks, the boy group faced backlash from international fans.
Recently, it was announced that NCT would collaborate with Starbucks, and a merch line featuring the boy group was even released. While Korean fans react mildly to the news, international fans show a completely different reaction, as Starbucks is a target of boycott due to the company’s affiliations with the ongoing crisis in Palestine.
In particular, due to the ongoing situation in the Gaza strip, where numerous Palestinian people were killed due to Israel’s airstrikes, many people all around the world are boycotting brands that support Israel.
Among those, Starbucks is a main target, as the brand tried to stop the Starbucks Workers’ union from using its name and logo in support of Palestine, and an executive was revealed to invest in Israel.
The opposition towards Starbucks led to international fans ultimately protesting against NCT’s latest collaboration. In particular, fans have not only called for a boycott of the merch line, but are also avoiding listening to NCT’s music and unfollowing the NCT members on SNS platforms.
The result of this boycott can be seen clearly in the number of followers of NCT members and NCT’s official group accounts.
Particularly, according to social media tracker Social Blade, the NCT Instagram account has lost over 670,000 followers, while members like Mark and Taeyong faced drops of over 980,000 and 688,000 followers, respectively.
Even the least affected members lose over 200,000 followers on Instagram, totalling to over 8 million followers on Instagram alone.
Thus, it seems that the boycott against NCT is working, and fans are currently trending in hope that SM will reconsider the collaboration.
It is known that in the past, other idols and agencies, such as Jeon Somi, LE SSERAFIM, and so on, have also faced intense backlash for promoting Starbucks or drinking from the brand.
Source: Krb
