Digital Amour

Starbucks and (Red) recently joined forces again to raise money and awareness for the Global Fund to Fight Aids.  At 8:30 ET on December 7, www.Starbucksloveproject.com streamed participants in 156 countries across the globe, all singing simultaneously, the Beatles’ “All you Need is Love”.  Following the sing-along, viewers were invited to upload their own rendition of the toon, and also, contribute a “Love Drawing” to the online gallery — proceeds were donated by Starbucks and (Red) for each video and drawing upload.

The site experience, created by Tool, was just one piece of the larger BBDO integrated campaign.  Ricardo Cabello, a freelance designer/developer teamed with Tool, and shares his accounts of the project experience on his blog.  “As part of this massive campaign, Starbucks has also partnered with Facebook to spread the message to the online social network’s hundreds of millions of users…This is the largest global campaign ever for both Facebook and Starbucks,” writes the Huffington Post.  Offline, TV spots delivering the site url ran on ABC, CBS and NBC morning shows.  I haven’t seen campaign metrics, but history tells me that the well thought out Starbucks/(Red) cross-channel campaign should help bolster awareness and fundraising for the global AIDS initiative.  The Huffington Post reported that the Starbucks/(Red) partnership began over a year ago, and, “Since that time, seven million daily doses of anti-retroviral AIDS medication have been distributed via the sale of (RED) products through Starbucks.”