Social / Comedy / Talent

Starbucks: Sipping Christmas Joy

For Christmas 2023 we had Santa, the Grinch and one of Santa’s elves unbox and review the new Starbucks drinks, written and played by three Romanian stand-up comedians.

Client: Starbucks Romania (AmRest Coffee)
Brands: Starbucks, Toffee Nut Latte, Gingerbread Latte, Hazelnut Crunch Hot Chocolate
Year: 2023
Markets: Romania
What we did: Idea, Casting, Scripts, Production, Social

Starbucks Romania’s Christmas 2023 brief: get people into stores for the winter drinks and grow its TikTok and Instagram. Reviews peak at Christmas, influencer reviews most of all, so we went to the season’s biggest influencers. Santa, the Grinch and one of Santa’s elves each got a Starbucks present to review, in character.

We didn’t want actors reading agency jokes, so we cast stand-up comedians and let them write their own. Sergiu Mirică played the Grinch, Vio Dragu was Santa and Ioana Luiza the elf. Our copywriter worked through the final jokes with each of them. The first trio we booked was on December tours, so the cast changed nine days before the shoot.

The Grinch hosts a vlog, “Let’s Grinch about it”, and opens his present for an Unboxing Roast. The Hazelnut Crunch Hot Chocolate is too good to roast. Beaten, he announces that next year we don’t open presents. We close them.

Sergiu Mirică as the Grinch, hosting his vlog "Let's Grinch about it". Today's episode is an Unboxing Roast, and the present is too good to roast.

Santa answers the haters who say he only works one day a year. Then he finds a Gingerbread Latte with his name on it: milk and a cookie in one cup, and with the coffee it’s 3 in 1, “like the shampoos men don’t ask for, but get anyway.”

Vio Dragu as Santa, answering the haters who say he only works one day a year, before he finds a Gingerbread Latte with his name on it.

The elf works the complaints line (“for naughty children, press 1”) until a present with her name on it lands on her desk. Unwrapping it herself, she decides, counts as ELF-service. Inside is a Toffee Nut Latte, and one long sip later she can feel her elf-esteem growing.