Coffee Mate had recently launched its first-ever non-creamer product: Coffee mate Iced Coffee. Since this was the brand’s first departure from creamer, we needed to do something that would make an impact and generate awareness among iced coffee lovers who may not have had any experience with Coffee mate until now.
Rather than spending our entire budget on a single, big celebrity, we used literal word of mouth and invited the entire iced coffee loving community to get the news out. The Coffee mate Iced Coffee Dare challenged people to yell, “Coffee mate has new Coffee mate Iced coffee”– in public, on the Internet, wherever. The top 20 boldest submissions would take home $2,500. We even created a line of merchandise and paid people to wear it, turning our fans into literal walking billboards.
We found that for our target audience, recommendations from friends and family were the biggest motivator to try out a new coffee brand. We also saw that there was an attitude and a personality that surrounded iced coffee– those who love it are extremely vocal about their passion for it and have created a whole culture around it. So we looked to that built-in iced coffee fanbase to help us spread the word about Coffee mate Iced Coffee.
Our series of social and influencer posts encouraged the coffee lover community to participate in the Coffee mate Iced Coffee dare. We used organic & paid social alongside influencers, such as Lili Hayes, Tiff Baira and Jared McCain, driving all our audiences to enthusiastically engage.
What started as a product launch became an iced coffee movement, driven by a blend of community engagement, creativity, and a little extra motivation. The irreverent stunt quickly gained traction. The work generated over 28 million impressions, our merch collection sold out within minutes, and sales of Coffee mate Iced Coffee increased by 20%.
