Coffee Mate had just launched its first-ever non-creamer product: Coffee Mate Ready-To-Drink Iced Coffee. We needed to generate awareness but didn’t want to take the more expected product campaign or celebrity endorsement route. Instead, knowing that people are more likely to try a new product if it’s recommended by friends and family, we created a campaign that leveraged the power of word-of-mouth and people’s obsession with iced coffee.

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Our campaign, the Coffee Mate Iced Coffee Dare, challenged people to yell, “COFFEE MATE HAS NEW COFFEE MATE ICED COFFEE” in public. The top 20 boldest submissions would take home $2,500. The irreverent stunt quickly gained traction, with iced coffee lovers flooding social media with their dare videos and generating over 28 million impressions.

 

We even created a line of merchandise and paid people to wear it, turning our fans into literal walking billboards. The merch sold out in minutes, proving how much people love iced coffee (and cash).

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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 result? A highly successful, unconventional campaign that got people talking (and yelling) about Coffee Mate’s new Iced Coffee.