People should feel even better about the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Fall Seasonals line since they’ve been newly produced with all-natural flavors...and now we just need to make sure everybody knows about it. So, our plan was to announce the arrival of our natural fall flavors in a way that grabs attention and allows consumers to easily make the connection to our exciting product news this fall. We did this by stripping away the artificial and enjoying our coffee...Fall Naturale.
Our main objective was for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters to create a campaign that stuck closely to our brand identity while still being bold and disruptive, and producing something that no other brand could replicate. We were, of course, hoping to secure consumer earned media coverage in top-tier national consumer outlets reaching the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters target consumers, generate creative social conversations and consumer talk value, with accurate message pull through. However, the response we got was nothing we could have ever imagined.
In order to get media excited about Green Mountain Coffee Roasters naturally flavored fall seasonal coffee, and creatively pull through the product RTB’s, Havas hijacked the news cycle and started our own cultural conversation. With this “ownable” cultural moment, we targeted national consumer, lifestyle, food/beverage and entertainment media outlets that increased awareness and brand love among our 30+ demographic.
Our approach was to skillfully seed Earned Media using talent & branded content focused on Pumpkin Spice around the time that Starbucks announces their fall menu and arrival of their PSL. By bolding entering the conversation in a timely and relevant way...we inserted our brand into the cultural zeitgeist. Utilizing secured interviews w/talent perfectly timed at launch, we generate a burst of coverage in strategically selected outlets across a variety of verticals
To do this, we partnered with a coffee-loving but unexpected celebrity, Martha Stewart, to strip down to nothing but an apron to tell media, fans, and consumers that Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Pumpkin Spice coffee is now made with natural flavors. Martha, in her kitchen with a Keurig brewer and at-home Pumpkin Spice K-Cup pods, invited consumers to join her in going “fall naturale” (a cheeky nod to ‘au natural’) within the provocative and playful :30 piece of content. The video was published to her personal social channels, as well as on the Green Mountain brand owned channels, and distributed widely to earned media (digital, print, and broadcast). The content was shot on an iPhone and captured within a one-hour shoot.
The campaign talent articulated all critical key messages resulting in product RTB pulled through in all earned media placements. For example:
"I tend to seek out foods, drinks, and ingredients made with natural ingredients or that are made with natural flavors. This was such a clever and fun campaign to be part of, and a great way to show consumers how Green Mountain Coffee Roasters makes it easy to enjoy pumpkin spice coffee at home."
Simply, we used social content creation, a published post with paid amplification, and earned media outreach to break the internet.
To celebrate PSL season in a new way, consumers were delighted to see Martha Stewart bearing it all for coffee.
Our outreach resulted in 9,964,033,236 total earned impressions and 343 total earned media placements. 92%+ of articles in meaningful media included accurate brand messaging, 97%+ of all coverage was part of standalone articles, and though it was a provocative move, 95%+ articles had a positive sentiment. For example:
People: “Martha Stewart Strips Down to Just an Apron for Sexy Coffee Campaign: 'I'm Not Embarrassed’
Delish: “Martha Stewart Bared It All To Show Her Love For Pumpkin Spice”
Vanity Fair: “Martha Stewart Prefers to Drink Her Coffee in the Nude”
Rolling Stone: “At 81, Martha Stewart Is Going On a Horny Journey”
We were picked up in the “5 Things We’re Talking About this Week” People magazine print edition where “Martha’s Sexy Coffee Campaign” was listed as #1. Worth noting that this is featured in the highly read 'Queen' issue that came out after her passing.
Martha’s social video resulted in 146k likes and 9k engagements with celebrities including Ellen Pompeo, Karlie Kloss, Grace Atwood, Antoni Porowski, and more commenting. Her IG Reel garnered 6.6M views and was the most watched video across all social posts, beating content with celebrity personalities including Snoop Dogg and Yung Gravy. In addition, her in-feed static post garnered 19.3k+ likes and over 400 comments, and her Twitter video resulted in 186k views, 1.3K likes, 313 comments, 158 retweets.
