San Francisco Bay Coffee and Agency of Record, Cutwater, Brew Up Animated, Eco-Friendly Campaign

Can a sip of coffee spark progress? Family-owned company rolls out its first-ever brand awareness endeavor and illustrates a sustainable future.

A startling statistic: 80 million plastic coffee pods go into landfills daily. One week of this waste could circle the Earth, while one day could stretch from NY to SF.

Committed to using coffee as a vehicle to create enduring change, the responsibly-sourced coffee brand, San Francisco Bay Coffee – which is owned by the Rogers Family Company – along with its creative and media agency of record, Cutwater, have partnered together to launch an all-new brand platform and integrated campaign.

The brand platform, entitled “One Small Sip For a Better Tomorrow”, illustrates how positive change starts with small steps, such as choosing San Francisco Bay Coffee. The campaign, anchored by a series of animated films, will run throughout paid and owned channels. The creative embraces playful, vibrant animation and highlights the brand’s certified commercially compostable OneCUP™ coffee pods. The imagery shows coffee lovers facing floods of plastic pods coming from their coffee mugs at home, the office, the road, and more.

Production and animation were spearheaded by Psyop and Wizz. The pieces were brought to life by directing duo Remus & Kiki. Music, sound design, and audio post were executed by Antfood.

“San Francisco Bay Coffee is the David in a category of Goliaths, yet they hold more true to values and practices we all want from our coffee brands. In addition to great tasting coffee, they innovate toward a better tomorrow. So if we want to make these great leaps of change, all it now takes is one small sip”, explains Cutwater Founder and COO Chuck McBride. “We chose animation because the story needed a special way to help people understand the benefits of compostable pods in a not too serious way.”

The work follows San Francisco Bay Coffee appointing Cutwater the creative and media agency of record title, a first-ever milestone for the brand.

San Francisco Bay Coffee Director of Marketing Jennifer Greenberg adds, “San Francisco Bay Coffee is proudly farm-to-mug, and we encourage coffee enthusiasts everywhere to make a difference in the world before they even leave the house by choosing our OneCUP coffee pods. This effort signals our very first ad campaign, a big moment in our brand evolution. In partnership with Cutwater, we developed a vast content library to help drive brand awareness and share our ongoing mission to provide great tasting coffee while also maintaining a focus on sustainability.”

The media strategy boasts a robust buy across video, social, digital display, audio, OOH, e-commerce, and search.

According to Cutwater Head of Media and Communications Lizzy Ryan, “Stressors like doomscrolling and hustle culture make it almost impossible to feel optimistic. Coffee rituals and habits can help lift moods and fight hyper-fatigue. We pursued a full-funnel approach and targeted values-driven consumers, especially those passionate about the environment.”

San Francisco Bay Coffee products are available for purchase online.