“back to starbucks”
brand starbucks
acd myself
creative director austin tott
between new product launches and a company-wide “back to starbucks” campaign, winter 2025 brought a lot to a usually sleepy season for starbucks.
As acd, I led the development of our social media content, directing our internal creative team and a new-to-us agency while supporting the larger marketing org.
the result was a more human, less polished look for the starbucks channels that leaned into humor and reactive content, while breaking engagement records and driving sales.
scroll to take a look at the specific needs of this campaign, and the content we delivered to meet them.
the task: introduce the new cortado platform and educate customers on the 8oz size, while still communicating craft and value.
the work: we adopted “small but mighty” messaging that spoke to the bold, espresso-forward flavor of cortado and positioned the size as a strength. we playfully highlighted the platforms unique size in our paid content by using shadows and mini sets to charm and capture attention.
agency: anomaly
the task: communicate that we’ve separated the sugar from our matcha powder while 1) letting the customer know the default would still be sweetened with classic syrup and 2) avoiding unwanted conversations around sugar.
the work: given the sensitivities around the messaging, our internal creative team decided on a two video approach featuring real baristas. the first video provided a playful overview of the change and a follow-up used platform-native comment replies to show customers how to customize the sweetness. the collective sigh of relief from marketing leadership when we presented our out-of-the-box approach to threading this tricky needle is a career highlight for me.
acd: myself
videographer: ryan moriarty
copywriter: ryan wheatley