Meet Me at Starbucks

Project Overview

Starbucks asked us to reimagine how a global brand could tell human stories—authentic, unscripted, and deeply connective—across cultures. To do this, we filmed in 28 countries over 24 hours, capturing moments of real people in Starbucks cafés and weaving them into an interactive global film. The concept: Starbucks isn’t just a place to grab coffee—it’s the “third place” where life’s moments converge.

We built an experience that let viewers dive into seven mini-stories via an expandable timeline, blending documentary storytelling with interactive digital exploration. An integrated share gallery allowed users to surface and distribute emotional snapshots of the film across social platforms. Our role spanned storytelling strategy, interaction design, and creative technology.

Objective

Our objective was multifold:

• Reframe Starbucks as a connector of people, places, and stories—not just a retailer.

• Capture and present genuine human moments from everyday life across the globe, in a way that felt immersive and exploratory rather than passive.

• Design an interactive platform that would let audiences engage with the film nonlinearly, exploring narrative threads that resonated personally rather than following a single fixed path.

• Enable sharing of emotional moments, giving viewers tools to elevate their own perspective on human connection through Starbucks’ lens.

In short: we wanted Starbucks’ brand identity to feel alive in its spaces—not through marketing spin, but through real life, stitched together across cultures.

Scope of Work

Global Production Coordination
We orchestrated an ambitious operation across 28 countries with 39 filmmakers in just 24 hours. We managed the logistics, creative direction, and timing to ensure every story fit within a cohesive visual and narrative style.

Interactive Experience Design
We designed an interface where users could navigate time, expand and collapse stories, and follow multiple narrative threads. The interactive timeline was central to controlling how viewers discovered, lingered in, or branched off into different human moments.

Content Architecture & Story Mapping
We structured each story as both a standalone moment and part of a global tapestry—tagging metadata, sequencing transitions, and managing content hierarchies so nothing felt disconnected.

Gallery & Social Sharing System
We built a robust, expandable gallery layer that let viewers isolate and share any moment, scene, or frame from the film. These slices of narrative became sharable artifacts that extended the film’s reach beyond the core site.

Creative Technology & Integration
We engineered the frontend and backend systems to support smooth transitions, responsive media loading, and interactive branching across devices. Our work made sure that whether someone explored via mobile, tablet, or desktop, the experience felt seamless and emotionally potent.