This is the work I did at Brandbuzz that won the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters business. The shot of the banners was from the "Today Show" - I dispatched interns to go and get on camera so I could use the footage in the pitch to underscore the "activist" nature of the program.
BETTER THAN IT WASN’T, BUT NOT AS GOOD AS IT IS.
Green Mountain Coffee first started appearing in places usually associated with bad coffee. Really bad coffee. Places like gas stations, convenience stores, company cafeterias.
The initial belief was that if you could get a cup of Green Mountain coffee into someone’s hand, they’d buy it by the pound at the supermarket.
Of course, this didn’t account for the fact that if we expect to taste gas station coffee, our perceptions will do all they can to oblige.
And not everyone wants to buy a pound of gas station coffee.
But rather than trying to convince anyone that Green Mountain coffee tasted better than they thought, why not instead accept all due credit and praise for getting rid of the burned sludge everyone hates?
Now that would be a Public Service! A Cause. A Mission. A Crusade!
Green Mountain was Saving the World from Bad Coffee.
And everyone had a role to play. This was a true grassroots program. The kind of idea that goes beyond merely “working across multiple platforms and channels” and shapes it’s own use of media. The site gave "agents" a way to report bad coffee and mobilize Green Mountain swat sales teams to fix it. Office workers could get free "Activist Kits" of materials to mount campaigns for better office coffee. Heck, it even included my all-time favorite medium - bumper stickers!
In keeping with Green Mountain's strong and long standing commitment to solid CSR practices, Saving the World was fitting language and sentiment. It not only meant saving the world from bad tasting coffee, but also from bad growers, bad trade practices, bad companies, bad roasters.
This was a brave stand against the tyranny of burned sludge everywhere
A crusade to uphold our inalienable American right to a decent cup of coffee when we need one.
Report bad coffee where you find it. Join Green Mountain’s noble cause and Save the World from Bad Coffee.