Ad of the Day: Starbucks Tells Your Story, Not Its Own, in First Global Brand Campaign

Need a place where you can audition someone for your band? Where you can haul your giant computer equipment for a geeky meeting? Where you can fuel up with your fellow bikers? Where you can celebrate a birthday, reconnect with a long-lost friend or just engage in a little PDA? There's a Starbucks for that. The coffee giant rolled out its first global brand campaign on Monday. And the focus is very much not on Starbucks (well, kind of not on Starbucks) but on the millions of people who get together at its stores every day—and the stories they have to tell. The feel-good theme is "Meet me at Starbucks," and the centerpiece—a five-minute-plus mini documentary by 72andSunny—shows people doing just that. It was culled from 220 hours of footage filmed in a single 24-hour period in 59 Starbucks stores (including the one I visited this morning, on Astor Place in New York) in 28 countries by 39 local filmmakers and 10 local photographers. We get to visit everywhere from Rio de Janeiro to Bogota, Singapore to Beijing, Mumbai to Toronto, Paris to Berlin to Istanbul. And the bonhomie—like your latte—appears to be much the same wherever you go. Last week we posted some new Starbucks work by BBDO New York that was very minimalist—images of text-message conversations cleverly showed how meeting people face to face is better than communicating virtually. The new campaign has the same message, but the style is sprawling by comparison. On YouTube, the five-minute film is interactive, giving you options to watch eight other films that tell the stories of different eclectic groups who regularly get together at Starbucks. We meet scrapbookers in Long Beach, N.Y.; postcard-sending fanatics in the Czech Republic; women practicing the art of knot tying in Japan; a hearing-impaired group meeting weekly in Honolulu; and more. (The film was cut into 30- and 60-second TV ads.) If that's not enough, you can click on "Gallery Mode" and get a whole screen full of smaller screens—with little films and vignettes everywhere you look. If this smorgasbord of virtual content doesn't convince you to stop consuming virtual content and go meet someone face to face, nothing will. (Actually, it's not that easy to embed anything except the main film, and perhaps that's a way to prevent virtual sprawl.) Rather than make any real argument for getting together at Starbucks specifically, the campaign assumes you probably already do. (It takes a brand of Starbucks' size to say things like, "It's never been just about the coffee.") And so the brand happily blends into the background. It's so ubiquitous, it's almost invisible. It's the happy host. And it lets the consumer be the hero. What the campaign does suggest about Starbucks, though, is that it's not just the unthinking, inevitable choice. Indeed, everyone here is thinking, and feeling, very deeply indeed. It's not just what everyone does. It's what interesting, passionate people do—and it's what they choose to do. "Good things happen when we get together. See you tomorrow," says the copy at the end. It's hard to argue with the first statement. The second, despite the phrasing, is actually up to you. And if the campaign does what it's supposed to, it will feel like a real choice—and one you'll gladly make. CREDITS Agency: 72andSunny Glenn Cole, Chief Creative Officer John Boiler, CEO Grant Holland , Group Creative Director Chiyong Jones, CD/CW Gui Borchert, CD/Designer Jc Abbruzzi , Lead Writer Warren Frost, Lead Designer Martin Schubert, Jr. Writer Natalie Viklund, Jr. Designer Aaron Tourtellot, Jr. Designer Matt Swenson, Creative Technologist Matt Jarvis, Chief Strategy Officer Kelly Schoeffel, Co-Head of Strategy Elisha Greenwell, Strategy Director Chris Kay, Managing Director, LA Josh Jefferis, Brand Director Celeste Hubbard, Brand Manager Alex Belliveau, Brand Coordinator Tom Dunlap, Chief Production Officer Sam Baerwald, Director of Film Production Dominique Anzano, Calleen Colburn, Ellen Pot, Sr. Film Producers Peter Williams, Film Producer Heather Wischmann, Director of Interactive Production Ruben Barton, Sr. Interactive Producer Adrienne Alexander, Interactive Producer Jason Heinz, Sr. Analyst Melissa Bell, UX Design Director Chip Davis, UX Designer Michelle McKinney, Business Affairs Director Christina Rust, Business Affairs Manager Jesse Sinkiewicz, Business Affairs Coordinator Production Company: m ss ng p eces, in collaboration with Co.MISSION Content Josh Nussbaum, Director Kate Oppenheim, Ari Kuschnir, Brian Latt, Executive Producers Dave Saltzman, Head of Production Mike Prall, Producer Harrison Winter, Co.MISSION Content Group EP / CEO Kris L. Young, Co.MISSION Content Group President Ideas United David Roemer, CEO Tammi Montier, Business Development Aaron Azpiazu, Partner Manager Editorial: Cut & Run, Los Angeles Michelle Eskin, Managing Director Carr Schilling, Executive Producer Remy Foxx, Post Producer Lucas Eskin, Stephen Berger, Isaac Chen, Sean Stender, Kendra Juul, Editors Brian Meagher, Christopher Malcolm Kasper, Assistant Editors Editorial: 72andSunny Studio John Keaney, Director of Operations Nick Gartner, Editor Becca Purice, Producer VFX: Jogger David Parker, Creative Director Matthew Lydecker, Artist Megan Kennedy, Producer Liz Lydecker, Sr. Producer Telecine: CO3 Sean Coleman, Colorist Mix: Play Studios John Bolen, Ryan Sturup, Mixers Lauren Cascio, Executive Producer Music Keith Kenniff, Unseen Music Jóhann Jóhannsson Youth Faire Andrew Simple Interactive: Stopp/Family CEO/Executive Producer: Fredrik Frizell Executive Producer: Eric Shamlin Producer: Callan Koenig Creative Director: Zachary Richter Associate Creative Director: Abe Cortes Junior Designer: April DiMartile UX: Wai Shun Yeong Junior UX: I.K Olumu Technical Director: Ola Björling Backend Developer: Mattias Hedman Frontend Developer: Jin Kim Subtitle Developer: Brian Hodge

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Ad of the Day: Starbucks Tells Your Story, Not Its Own, in First Global Brand Campaign

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