Today in Look Before You Jump News: Starbucks seems to have gone the way of Netflix in making service changes without checking with customers first–and now its PR team has a bit of a backlash on its hands.

The coffee giant has some notoriously loyal customers, and its “My Starbucks Rewards” program has been extremely popular. Company publicists just announced a few modifications set to begin on October 16^th in an effort to encourage even more customer loyalty. The changes include birthday freebies, smartphone discounts (customers previously had to wait for postcards) and some kind of gold star system that we don’t really understand.

Sounds good, right? Not really. The shift that caused an Internet uproar seems tiny at first glance: Starbucks will no longer offer complimentary soy or flavored syrup shots. We didn’t even realize that the chain charged extra for soy milk.

Well, it turns out that Starbucks has more than a few lactose-intolerant customers–and they are not happy with the changes! Check out the comments on the company’s Facebook page via our friends at The Hoffman Agency for examples of previously loyal customers who have taken offense at this new policy. Seems like the company should have tested this new proposal with their fans first, no?

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We have three very different announcements from Starbucks.

First we had news that the coffee emporium was expanding its food options with the $100 million purchase of La Boulange, with that company’s pastries replacing the items Starbucks currently stocks. Starbucks also plans to take La Boulange, a Bay-area chain, national.

The Huffington Post says food sales are a $1.5 billion business for Starbucks. The company says it wants to add a French flair to its restaurants.

Second, Starbucks could start selling single serve K-cups in its stores next week. The company began selling the K-cups six months ago at grocers and other retailers. CEO Howard Schultz has called sales figures so far “robust.” It already sells single-serve instant coffee in its stores.

“For Starbucks, the move to K-cups is part of its overall strategy of becoming a broader consumer products company rather than relying so heavily on its cafe sales,” writes Fox Business.

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In addition to announcing a new corp comms model, the Arthur W. Page Society is having a spring conference in NYC that wraps up today. Yesterday, I sat in on the “CEO Spotlight,” which was placed on healthcare/pharmaceutical company Novartis.

Novartis faces a dilemma, according to CEO Joe Jimenez. “We’re ranked first as Fortune magazine’s most admired pharmaceutical company, but the whole industry suffers from a poor reputation,” he said. He bemoaned that “public trust of pharma even ranks below oil and tobacco.”

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Margaret Shubny has joined GolinHarris in Chicago, filling a new executive director role. She will be leading several accounts in the healthcare practice as part of the firm’s “Catalyst” group. Shubny was most recently MD of Burson-Marsteller’s healthcare practice.

The Women at NBCU advisory board has six new members: Julie Eddleman, marketing director for North American media and shopper marketing at P&G; Annie Young-Scrivner, global CMO of Starbucks and president of Tazo; Fiona Morrison, who was most recently director of brand and advertising for JetBlue Airways; Susan Whiting, vice chair at Nielsen, responsible for client relations and marketing; Sarah Greenberg Roberts, head of publicity at The Weinstein Company; and Mindy Grossman, CEO of HSN. Women at NBCU is the female-targeted marketing and research initiative at NBC.

Allison + Partners has named Trudi Boyd GM of the firm’s Washington D.C. office, helping to build the public affairs practice and managing growth and client service for the office. She previously spent 14 years at FTI Consulting, most recently serving as MD of the Health and Life Science practice.

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Three more companies have announced that they are raises prices on their goods or services: Starbucks is raising prices by one percent on some items across the Northeast and Sunbelt; Denny’s is raising prices three to five percent this year; and Delta is adding a $3 charge on flights between the U.S. and Europe.

Word of these price hikes started coming out late yesterday, yet it hasn’t been met with the same level of consumer rancor that the Verizon or Bank of America fee proposals did. What gives? We have a few thoughts.

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Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz appeared on the Today show yesterday to introduce  that company’s new philanthropic campaign, which seeks to raise money that will help small businesses in need of loans. Launched in collaboration with Create Jobs for USA and the Opportunity Finance Network, Starbucks is getting the ball rolling with a $5 million donation. And each $5 donation from consumers will get them a wristband that shows support.

During the Today show appearance, Matt Lauer played devil’s advocate, asking Schultz to address any “cynicism” out there about this being a PR project. “I can assure you, this is nothing about marketing,” Schultz replied. He continued, in response to another question, “This is not about PR.”

Lauer said at one point, “You say it’s not PR, but it sounds a lot like a PR campaign.” Why can’t it be both philanthropic and a PR campaign?

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Today is National Coffee Day and some companies are using the holiday to give away free coffee, which is great.

You have until 11a.m. to get your free cup at 7-11 and Krispy Kreme* will get you caffeinated for free all day, and rumor has it that McDonald’s is offering free joe.

It doesn’t look like Starbucks is giving anything away, but you can give them (or Nordstrom’s) $85 for a fancy Alexander Wang t-shirt with a coffee-stain stencil of the Starbucks mermaid. The tee (at left) has nothing to do with coffee day. Rather it’s for Starbucks’ 40th anniversary and there are three others at the same price, all created by CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award winners. Wethinks we like free coffee better.

[h/t NY1]

*Correction after the jump.

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Edelman has appointed Derek Ng to the regional client relationship manager (CRM) position for the Starbucks account in the Asia-Pacific region. Edelman has a CRM program that assigns a manager to work exclusively on large global accounts as a way to ensure quality work and customer service.

As Starbucks CRM, Ng will oversee work on the account and create a team spanning across the APAC region, including China. Ng is rejoining the firm after a year in Burson-Marsteller’s Singapore office as director of government comms. He will continue to live in Singapore. When he was previously with Edelman, he served as corporate director of Edelman Shanghai.

A study conducted by Pace University doctoral student Arthur O’Connor and Famecount.com, a company that tracks social media renown, found a correlation between the social media popularity and stock price.

The research looked at three popular brands — Starbucks, Coca-Cola, and Nike — between April7, 2010 and February 2, 2011, analyzing activity across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The research found that social media popularity could be used as an indicator of stock price.

“By using social network popularity data on three major consumer brands, we were able to reliably predict their respective daily stock prices over a 10 month period,” O’Connor said in a statement. The research found a link with Starbucks and Nike up 29 percent and 14 percent respectively, and Coke down six percent.

You can get a full copy of the study by signing up here.

In continuing coverage of the Starbucks 40th anniversary, The New York Times did a story this weekend that was a professional profile of CEO Howard Schultz, a history of the company, and a profile of the brand and it’s continuing comeback to coffee prominence. If you haven’t read the story, you should, if only to gather ideas for pitching a story like this on behalf of one of your own clients.

But the most interesting quotes in the story came from a Temple University professor, Bryant Simon, who’s written a book called Everything But the Coffee: Learning About America from Starbucks.

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