How Starbucks used Instagram to Power a Winning Festive Campaign

Starbucks are well known as a brand that has a high level of affinity with their customers. The genius name on the cup in store still makes for superb social media sharing material and creates a personal experience every time you pay them a visit no matter which store you use. The coffee giant has a few gold standard marketing campaigns under its belt but one in particular stands out for its superb use of a developing mobile platform.

With its unprecedented acceleration in growth rising from 400 million to over 600 million active users mid-2015 to the end of 2016, Instagram has entered the record books as one of the fastest growing social media platforms and highly downloaded mobile apps. It’s no surprise then that more and more brands are using the platform to advance their social media marketing efforts. Despite the rise in popularity though, not many brands have been able to crack what it takes to really get the most in marketing terms from this photo sharing mobile app. This is where a little Starbucks magic comes in.

In the built up to Christmas 2016, Starbucks stuck with tradition, releasing their signature red coffee cups to mark the start of the festive season. Among many coffee loving millennials this event is considered the real start to the Christmas build up. To build on this already successful campaign tactic Starbucks embraced the heart of what makes a successful social media campaign. Creating share worthy content and inspiring their audience to get involved. They released a social media based competition intended specifically for Instagram they called Red Cup Art.

The Red Cup Art campaign asked that customers use their red cups to create festive art projects and share them online after snapping pictures on their smartphones. The hashtag #redcupart was born and participants were incentivised to tag Starbucks and share their art with them by way of entry in to a prize draw for an exclusive Starbucks card promising a years’ worth of free coffee. The global mega-brand lead the charge by providing creative red cup art examples via their own Instagram posts to creative further buzz around the campaign and further prompt their customer base to join in.

The campaign appealed superbly to their millennial audience’s basic need to create an air of individualism via their social profiles and in the process, grew their Instagram following to more than 12 million users. A hugely successful campaign all powered by a mobile app based social media platform. As impressive as the concept and general premise of this campaign is, what is also noteworthy is that aside from some upfront awareness activity, Starbucks did not need to support this campaign with a great deal of marketing spend as they used their audience to create and share the content on their behalf. Making overall costs for the campaign minimal despite the enormous impact for their audience and the substantial increase in followers they will now have access to for future campaigns and product launches.

Observing brands can certainly learn from the approach used here but the overall lesson is to remember that in an increasingly social media dominated advertising era, the creation of high quality content that resonates with your target audience is going to be a key factor for any campaigns success.