The Super Bowl pregame—and the morning after—are about to get a lot more caffeinated this year.
Starbucks will run a new advertisement during the Super Bowl pregame program on Fox, the company said on Wednesday. It is also planning to give away free coffee to loyalty members on the morning afterward, which it is calling “Starbucks Monday.”
Both events are designed to highlight the company’s roots as a traditional coffeehouse. The campaign follows the launch of Starbucks’ “Not My Name” ad on Jan. 26, which showcased the simple act of baristas writing names on cups and handing them to consumers.
The campaign also continues the stark departure from Starbucks’ traditional marketing strategy under new CEO Brian Niccol and recently hired Chief Brand Officer Tressie Lieberman.
The new strategy is relatively simple: Same-store sales in the U.S. declined last year. The company wants to lift those sales, and changing the marketing approach is a key part of that. The Super Bowl and Starbucks Monday ads, along with the previous Not My Name spot, are all designed to reintroduce the brand to U.S. consumers.
“As part of our plan to get back to Starbucks we are reestablishing Starbucks as the community coffeehouse and reintroducing our story to the world,” Lieberman said in a statement.
Starbucks shifted away from discount marketing shortly after Niccol took over as CEO last year. That shift led to a 40% reduction in discounted transactions.
The company is shifting the dollars from discounts to more traditional marketing. Or, as Niccol said, “switching the dollars out of discounting into what I would call working dollars for the brand and the brand experience.”
“We’re taking these dollars, allocating it to talk about the brand experience in such a way where it’s very executable for people to experience it through our partners and stores,” he told analysts last month.
The first, minute-long ad, called “Hello Again,” is a signature ad designed to highlight the chain’s roots as a traditional coffeehouse.
It opens with a barista opening a Starbucks location early in the morning and then shows scenes from the coffeeshop while a narrator notes that, “Our baristas are ready.” All this is done to the song “Thunderstruck” by the rock group AC/DC. The ad will run during the pregame program.
The second ad, which will run during the NFL’s postgame show, is 15 seconds, and also highlights the coffee shop to "Thunderstruck," while a narrator informs viewers that coffee is free on Monday.
Members of the Starbucks Rewards program, who account for about 60% of sales at the company’s corporate locations, will be able to get a free tall hot or iced brewed coffee on Monday.
The company suggests that consumers need the pick-me-up on the day after the game, and notes a survey from the human resources technology company UKG that found an estimated 22.6 million employees plan to miss work on Monday.
Starbucks has made numerous changes inside its coffee shops to present them as friendlier places people want to visit.
The company ran its Not My Name ad immediately following some of those changes, such as the return of handwritten names on cups, self-serve creamers and ceramic and glass cups along with free refills for customers who want to stick around.
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