On April 19, Starbucks released its newest concoction: The Unicorn Frappuccino. A mango and vanilla flavored cream dusted with sweet pink powder and layered with sour, blue topping, this frappuccino is far from what one would call healthy. A quick look into its ingredients and calorie content will reveal that unicorn magic comes at a high price -- not to mention its cost upfront at around $4.75.
As rare as... a unicorn. The color-changing, flavor-changing #UnicornFrappuccino—here for a limited time at participating stores.🦄✨ pic.twitter.com/TaIQrF8fac
— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) April 19, 2017
Reactions to the drink have ranged from love to disgust, with the latter being the more popular opinion.
Celebrities among everyday social media users have been weighing in since the drink’s release. Katy Perry spit it out after a single taste, while Hoda Kotb said she loved it. Carson Daly, Matt Lauer, and Stephen Colbert all tried it on live television. It is, at this point, undeniable: The Unicorn Frappuccino is wildly popular.
Unicorns and frappuccinos combined are the Holy Grail
The Unicorn Trend has been popular on social media since 2015, and is still in high stride today. Unicorns are reminiscent of magic, happiness, rainbows, and glitter. They have been rampant in media through depictions in Disney’s "Fantasia," My Little Pony’s Unicorn Princess Twilight Sparkle, and in Lisa Frank’s school supplies, to name a few.
Products such as unicorn toast, essence, tears, and even snot have been sold and bought by eager consumers. In 2016 particularly, the unicorn trend took off with unicorn hair, unicorn makeup, and the general sale of unicorn products.
The Starbuck’s frappuccino has likewise been popular, particularly on social media as a “basic” trend, for many years.
Combined with unicorns, the newest frappuccino was bound to be a hit.
Obsession with the Unicorn Frappuccino has become the new trend
Starbucks capitalized on its consumer base by creating a product that would appeal not only to the young girl obsessed with princesses, unicorns, and pink, but also to the older consumer looking to build on their trendy, whimsical, and colorful social media aesthetic.
Starbucks created a product that inherently marketed itself. The Unicorn Frappuccino’s alternating layers of bright pink and blue beckon its consumers, begging them to take part in the Unicorn Trend in a form already popular -- the Starbucks frappuccino.
A quick Google, Instagram, or Twitter search will display hundreds of thousands of photos of the magical creation, thus proving the public’s obsession with it. Ultimately, consumers were not put off by the drink’s nutrition facts nor the numerous warnings regarding its taste, but rather were likely made more curious and eager to take part in the unicorn magic themselves. The obsession with the Unicorn Frappuccino itself has become the new trend.
