Takes to the road for a virtual road trip
How Starbucks Spain’s virtual production social campaign aligned with its sustainability targets and its Gen Z audience
- Film production
- Virtual production
- Social media videos
Starbucks, a global coffee brand, celebrates coffee and its craft. Needing to build brand love for its Frappuccino® Blended Beverage and recruit new consumers to the brand, Starbucks Spain turned to our Film and Animation team for some standout content.
Virtual production for Starbucks Spain: a creative solution
With a tight timeframe and an immediate need for a 20–30 second advert specifically for YouTube and Twitch, we got to work.
The target audience for the campaign was Gen Z, and the team developed the idea of a road trip across Spain that conveys the part Frappuccino® plays in summer lifestyle spaces in the market. After some quick creative development and storyboarding, the team realised that virtual production was the only way to achieve the desired result within the tight timeframe.
Benefits of virtual production in meeting tight deadlines
The natural successor to the traditional green screen, virtual production works by displaying prebuilt environments on an LED wall to cast realistic light on subjects. With the deadline quickly approaching, virtual production gave our Film team ultimate control, helping the video stay on track in terms of cost and time. The project was managed entirely in house, including casting the actors for the shoot. Find out more about virtual production.
In post-production, we created the full 30-second ad, plus we optimised outputs for TikTok, Meta and Twitch. The entire project was completed within three weeks of the initial brief.
Post-production and adaptability of virtual production
The team also created extra outputs for AroundU to target students, one of Starbucks Spain's core demographics. The ad successfully communicated that the Starbucks Frappuccino® Blended Beverage range was a great way to enjoy the summer, as July and August were the critical months they wanted to hit.
Aligning with sustainability goals
This was the first time Starbucks Spain had used virtual production, which allowed it to produce the content quickly and which aligned with its sustainability credentials and targets. This enabled the shoot to take place in one studio location compared with an on-location shoot, with multiple locations and travel requirements.
Campaign success
The ad was used across all of Starbucks Spain’s channels, as paid and organic social content for YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, with 6,000 views on the TikTok Spain account. The campaign was a great success, and Starbucks Spain has set a new standard for quick, creative and cost-effective content production using virtual production techniques.
Linney's virtual production capabilities
Virtual production offers the flexibility to create any imaginable environment, enabling brands to bring their vision to life cost effectively and efficiently, without sacrificing creativity or quality. Get in touch to find out more.
“Our investment in cutting-edge technology working in partnership with Samsung has enabled us to offer brands an exciting opportunity to explore their creative potential through virtual production. We are always finding new challenges in this particular field. It’s all moving so fast and in so many directions, from visual art techniques to lighting specialists and the art department; it’s a real departure from the normal, which is a lot of fun.”
Head of Film and Animation
