Café Bustelo Makes Iced Coffee a Latin Cultural Statement
Café Bustelo's "Make it Latin" is a 2024 national 360° campaign by BBH USA and PSOne that introduces the brand's first-ever Prnewswire.clapboard.com/archive/nescafe-coffee-bar-food-drink">Espresso Style Iced Coffee Beverages to the United States market through an animated continuation of the existing "Está Aquí" platform, blending Latin cultural identity with a cold coffee product launch.
Café Bustelo launched its Espresso Style Iced Coffee Beverages in June 2024, marking the brand's first multi-serve product designed exclusively for cold consumption, as reported by PR Newswire. The product debuted at Target in three 40-fluid-ounce varieties — Unsweetened, Sweetened, and Vanilla — with Walmart and Kroger identified as subsequent retail destinations, according to Food Dive. The launch represents a meaningful extension of Café Bustelo's product range beyond its heritage roast-and-ground and instant formats, responding directly to documented shifts in how younger Americans consume coffee.
"Make it Latin" sits within the broader "Está Aquí" campaign platform that PSOne, Publicis' Power of One solution for The J, according to Fooddive.M. Smucker Co., has built around the brand. Rather than a repositioning, the campaign functions as what Marketing Dive described as an "icy makeover" of an already established creative world, according to Preparedfoods. The animated neighbourhood that audiences recognise from prior instalments returns, this time reimagined under a frost-drenched visual treatment that mirrors the product's cold proposition. The campaign carries a Clapboard Score of 64 out of 100, reflecting solid craft execution within a franchise extension context. The national rollout spans broadcast, digital, and social channels across the United States, with the social layer anchored by "cool cards" — recipe-led content showing consumers ways to customise their Café Bustelo Iced Coffee experience.
Iced coffee consumption in the United States has become a defining habit of younger adults. Café Bustelo's own campaign materials note that over one third of individuals under the age of 35 consume iced coffee daily. This demographic signal shapes the entire strategic logic of "Make it Latin": a heritage Latin coffee brand, founded in 1920s East Harlem and long associated with stovetop espresso preparation, extending its identity into the refrigerated aisle to meet consumers where their habits already are.
The ready-to-drink and cold coffee segment in the United States has become intensely competitive. Starbucks commands significant shelf presence in the multi-serve refrigerated coffee category through its bottled Frappuccino and cold brew lines, while Chameleon Cold-Brew and La Colombe have positioned themselves around premium cold formats. Café Bustelo's response is not to compete on premiumisation alone but on cultural distinctiveness — a strategy that differentiates the brand through its Latin heritage rather than price point or single-origin provenance.
The broader coffee market context reinforces the opportunity. According to SkyQuestT, the global coffee market was estimated at approximately $256.3 billion in 2024, with a projected compound annual growth rate of around 4.2 percent through 2033. While those figures describe a global market, the United States remains one of the most valuable single-country coffee markets within it. The refrigerated, ready-to-drink segment within the United States continues to outpace overall coffee category growth, making Café Bustelo's June 2024 product timing strategically coherent. The "Make it Latin" campaign is designed to give the new product immediate cultural credibility rather than allowing it to compete purely on distribution and price in a crowded US aisle.
Brand New School directed the animation at the heart of "Make it Latin." Jeff Bryson directed the animated sequences, with Andrés Rivera serving as Creative Director and Lead Designer at Brand New School, shaping the visual identity of the iced campaign, as documented by LBBOnline. Jonathan Notaro, Chief Creative Officer at Brand New School, oversaw the production house's contribution alongside PXP, the second production company credited on the campaign.
The creative execution transports viewers into a vividly animated cityscape — the same neighbourhood established in earlier "Está Aquí" instalments — where summer heat is the antagonist. When a resident opens a bottle of Café Bustelo Espresso Style Iced Coffee, the city transforms: warm, saturated tones give way to cool, crystalline blues and whites as frost spreads across streets, buildings, and characters. The visual metaphor is deliberate and legible — cold coffee renders the entire world cold, turning a product benefit into a neighbourhood-wide event. This approach preserves the communal, block-party spirit that defines the "Está Aquí" universe while pivoting its temperature.
The soundtrack plays an equally structural role. An icy remix of the "Sabor Único" theme — the original musical identity of the "Está Aquí" platform — anchors the spot emotionally while signalling change. The remix functions as the audio equivalent of the visual frost treatment: familiar enough to reinforce brand continuity, altered enough to signal a new chapter. Marketing Dive documented three primary executions: a 30-second hero spot and two 15-second cuts titled "Latin Storm" and "Grocery Run," each adapting the core narrative to shorter formats. Alan Wilson, SVP Group Creative Director at BBH USA, described the work as a fresh expansion of the brand's East Harlem-rooted world while keeping its dynamic spirit intact, as quoted by LBBOnline. The social layer extends the creative with "cool cards" — recipe content designed to drive product interaction beyond passive viewing.
No independently verified post-campaign performance data for "Make it Latin" is publicly available at the time of publication. What the public record does confirm is the campaign's distribution footprint: Target was identified as the launch retailer in June 2024, with Walmart and Kroger listed as subsequent destinations, according to Food Dive, indicating national retail reach from launch. The 360° campaign structure — spanning broadcast, digital, social, and in-store activation — reflects a media investment consistent with a major product introduction for a brand within The J.M. Smucker Co.'s portfolio.
Structurally, the campaign demonstrates several effectiveness signals. By anchoring a new product category — refrigerated, multi-serve iced coffee — within an already-established creative universe, "Make it Latin" reduces the cognitive load on existing Café Bustelo consumers while simultaneously presenting a legible entry point for new ones. The animated world functions as a persistent brand asset, with each campaign instalment adding value to the platform rather than resetting it. The "cool cards" social extension creates a low-friction participation mechanic that connects product utility to cultural identity, extending dwell time beyond the broadcast spot.
The campaign's Clapboard Score of 64 out of 100 reflects competent franchise execution with a clearly defined brief. The score acknowledges the campaign's strengths in creative consistency and cultural grounding while noting that the "icy makeover" framework, as characterised by Marketing Dive, operates as an extension rather than an originating creative idea. For a product launch within an established platform, that is a commercially rational trade-off, prioritising shelf presence and brand recognition over creative risk.
"Make it Latin" is a 2024 national campaign by BBH USA and PSOne launching Café Bustelo's first Espresso Style Iced Coffee Beverages in the United States. It continues the brand's animated "Está Aquí" platform, transforming a familiar neighbourhood world into a frost-covered scene to introduce the new cold coffee product to US consumers.
The campaign promotes Café Bustelo Espresso Style Iced Coffee Beverages, the brand's first multi-serve product designed exclusively for cold consumption. As reported by PR Newswire, the product launched at Target in June 2024 in three 40-fluid-ounce varieties: Unsweetened, Sweetened, and Vanilla, with Walmart and Kroger as subsequent retail destinations.
BBH USA led creative direction, with Alan Wilson serving as SVP Group Creative Director. PSOne, Publicis' integrated solution for J.M. Smucker, managed the broader agency structure. Brand New School, with director Jeff Bryson and Creative Director Andrés Rivera, produced the animation, as documented by LBBOnline and News Designrush.
"Make it Latin" is a direct continuation of the "Está Aquí" platform, not a new campaign direction. Marketing Dive described it as an "icy makeover" of the established creative world. The same animated neighbourhood, Latin cultural cues, and remixed "Sabor Único" soundtrack appear, with a frost-driven visual treatment added to reflect the cold coffee product.
Café Bustelo's campaign materials note that over one third of individuals under 35 consume iced coffee daily. In the United States, the ready-to-drink cold coffee segment has grown faster than overall coffee sales, making the refrigerated aisle a strategic priority for the brand to reach younger American consumers already committed to cold coffee habits.
The Café Bustelo "Make it Latin" campaign holds a Clapboard Score of 64 out of 100. The score reflects strong creative consistency and cultural grounding within the "Está Aquí" platform, while noting that the campaign operates as a franchise extension rather than an originating creative concept, which limits its ceiling as a standalone creative achievement.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
