Latte art smackdowns: have they jumped the shark? What could spice them up, bring them into the public eye in a new way, make them more corporate and also somehow more individual? In what may be one of the most unique brand synergy/barista-mainstreaming campaigns yet to hit US shores, AT&T announced earlier this month its Asian-American Latte Art Smackdown, pitting the top 5 Asian-American baristas from Seattle, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles (Downtown) and Los Angeles (Orange County) [?] head-to-head in an internet pour-off of tightly foamed proportions.

Sprudge AT&T Latte Art Smackdown
Image from LatteArtSmackdown.com and AT&T.

The winning barista will be elected by popular vote via the official AT&T Latte Art Smackdown website, where visitors to the site can view five videos of latte art shot on Samsung Galaxy S5 Active telephones.

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Sprudge Asian-American AT&T Latte Art Smackdown
Image from LatteArtSmackdown.com and AT&T.

We’re huge fans of celebrating all aspects of culture and coffee culture here at Sprudge, and though we know it’s a slippery slope, allow us to come right out and say it: there’s something off about this contest. It’s all a little problematic. We feel it’s appropriate for us to call out this multinational communications company’s blatant bias here…towards filming their latte videos in portrait mode???

Sprudge Asian-American AT&T Latte Art Smackdown
Image from LatteArtSmackdown.com and AT&T.

You can vote for your favorite Asian American portrait-mode using latte artists until November 6th, or join in the #brand #conversation over on Twitter, where research for this feature clued us in to an internet robo-cabal of fake coffee personalities, all of whom are jazzed up about the contest in an eerily similar fashion:

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The same bunch of bots are really fired up about chocolate chip scones and Starbucks K-cups.

All images and logos property of AT&T.

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