During this past holiday season, Starbucks cups featured holiday themes that turned into augmented reality scenes after patrons scanned select Starbucks cups. The coffee company had a large amount of success with the AR holiday cups, and now Starbucks is spreading that joy to those who purchase a Starbucks drink during the month of February.

February brings with it Valentine’s Day, and Starbucks wants to spread the love to consumers by offering special Valentine’s Day themed cups. When scanned using an Android phone or iPhone, the cups turn into virtual wonderlands full of heart petals and love flowers. Already, the cups (released on Feb. 6th) are a hit with Starbucks consumers across North America. Want to see what your Starbucks cup can do? Here’s how it works.

Make Your Starbucks Cup Come Alive

After purchasing your favorite Starbucks elixir, grab that heart-themed cup and hold it up to your iPhone or Android phone using the Starbucks Cup Magic app (available for free in the Android Marketplace and the Apple App Store). Soon enough, your screen will be full of moving hearts that eventually form a heart-shaped flower. You can make the hearts move on-screen by using your index and thumb to make them bigger or smaller, but that’s not all you can do with the cool virtual heart-flowers.

It’s also possible to send the virtual version of your scanned cup as a Valentine’s Day card to someone you love. You can send this fun animation via email or through social networks like Facebook (you can also post the greeting on your wall). As soon as you post your greeting, the world will know that you enjoy Starbucks and have an appreciation for fun holidays like Valentine’s Day. Best of all, turning your Starbucks holiday cup into a virtual postcard is completely free you just need the Cup Magic app.

A Fun Marketing Idea

Starbucks enjoyed a lot of success with its holiday Cup Magic app. No doubt, the company will continue offering customers a bit of cup fun with every holiday that approaches. I haven’t seen the heart-themed cups in Canada yet, but you will find these AR cups throughout the United States at select Starbucks locations. If you have a moment and an iPhone or Android phone, go ahead and scan your cup to see what great marketing looks like. There’s no real reason why you need to have a cup that can be turned into a heart-themed postcard, but why not?

Incidentally, Starbucks recently announced that select locations would begin selling beer and wine products. While the Card Magic cups are a great idea, I’m not so sure that serving up alcoholic beverages is the way to go. Still, it will be interesting to see how Starbucks fans react to the Cup Magic Valentine’s Day cups and to the prospect of being able to purchase beer and wine at Starbucks locations. It’s anyone’s guess how these campaigns will turn out, but one thing is clear: Starbucks continues to innovate and move forward providing consumers with a bit of fun.