International Delight is the leader in the Coffee Creamer category and have been for years. Pumpkin Spice is their number one selling seasonal flavour. Recently Starbucks (the first thing you think of when you think Pumpkin Spice) launched into the creamer category using Pumpkin Spice as their entry point. With Starbucks’ existing brand recognition and spending power threatening International Delight’s leadership position, the brand had to fight back. With limited budgets, and less pop-culture relevance than Starbucks they had to be clever.

The new entrants into the category led by Starbucks are speaking directly to International Delight’s aspirational target of Millennial and GenZ coffee drinkers in a way that International Delight hasn’t in the past.

Objectives and Goals:

Our goal was maintaining International Delight’s #1 Category position despite the Starbucks threat while driving a YOY sales increase of 5% our Pumpkin Spice SKU. All with a limited budget of <$50K

People loathe having to wait for Pumpkin Spice to be released each year. Starbucks and other Big Coffee retailers have controlled the flow of pumpkin spice by limiting when it’s available. Our goal was to side with consumers instead of some corporate agenda with the goal to “Set Pumpkin Spice Free”. We engineered a dispenser to put Pumpkin Spice back into the hands of the people before Starbucks could. We placed the dispenser in front of Starbucks in the height of summer—months before their pumpkin spice lattes would be available - and encouraged consumers to top their cups of coffee with the flavour we knew they wanted. Once they had a sip of pumpkiny goodness we knew they couldn’t wait for more, so we gave them a coupon to redeem in store where our pumpkin spice creamer was on shelves before the coffee giants said the season is here.

We targeted younger Millennials and Gen Z (18–40), as they were ripe for Pumpkin Spice disruption. Millennials are tired of the played-out basic white girl pumpkin spice cliches. This target has been around since the beginning of the Pumpkin Spice craze and are unapologetic about their love for the flavor. Our Gen Z target has been raised in the era of acceptance– don’t yuck someone else’s yum. This group doesn’t judge people for what they’re into, in fact, they celebrate it. While distinctly different, neither group cares to be told what to do or how to think.

We know that our biggest competitor, Starbucks, has this demo’s loyalty in a way that we simply do not. But while Starbucks ignores the desires of their consumers (72% want Pumpkin Spice all year ‘round) we leaned into this and gave them what they wanted – right when and where they least expected.

Dropping a Pumpkin Spice dispenser on the doorstep of our biggest competitor that scanned their logo to trial our product was disruptive stunt that broke through in the most unconventional way.

The Free the Spice dispenser launched in front of the Starbucks at Queen’s Quay in Toronto. The media coverage shared the story on TV, in online publications and through organic social content.

The activation had two components, with the dispenser activation taking place over one day, August 13th, 2022, and the resulting online video, social engagement and press coverage running from late August until October 31st, 2022.

Our primary goal was maintaining International Delight’s #1 Category position despite the Starbucks threat while driving a YOY sales increase of 5% our Pumpkin Spice SKU.

Despite the entry of a number of new competitors International Delight was (and still is) able to maintain its category leadership position by volume and sales. Comfortably ahead of Starbucks.

At the close of the campaign International Delight Pumpkin Spice sales saw a +19.78% YOY increase - the strongest year of Pumpkin Spice sales to date.

In addition to beating our sales targets, we helped drived brand recognition and awareness with our aspirational Millennial and Gen Z targets following this activation we saw an increase of 4.2 points of market share among consumer 35 and under. This increase took International delight over 50% share of the entire category amount consumers 35 and under for the first time ever.