How Starbucks Used Hello Again to Reclaim Its Coffee Identity
Starbucks Hello Again is a 2025 brand film campaign created by Anomaly LA that debuted during Fox's Super Bowl LIX pre-game broadcast on February 9, positioning the brand as a return to its core identity as The Starbucks Coffee Company through cinematic storytelling set to AC/DC's Thunderstruck.
The campaign launched in the United States with a 90-second lead film and a 60-second Super Bowl pre-game spot, followed by a 15-second post-game execution on February 10, 2025, promoting the Starbucks Rewards offer, as reported by Little Black Book. The creative premise was explicit: reintroduce Starbucks to the world by foregrounding baristas, drink preparation, and the personal in-store connection that the brand built its original reputation upon. Tressie Lieberman, Global Chief Brand Officer at Starbucks, stated plainly that "Hello Again is a declaration of a return to our roots with a celebration of coffee and connection."
The campaign extended beyond the United States in the months that followed. A UK version launched on February 25, 2025, featuring a British voiceover and a tailored script, per lbbonline.com. A France rollout followed in April 2025, with digital out-of-home placements in shopping centres running from May 19 through June 22, 2025, and video distribution across TF1, M6, Prime Video, and Netflix from May 19 through June 15, 2025, according to resto-today.com. The Super Bowl pre-game premiere, however, anchored the campaign firmly in the United States market, choosing one of the highest-profile broadcast moments of the year to signal that Starbucks was not merely refreshing a tagline but reasserting a founding philosophy. Hello Again earns a Clapboard Score of 61 out of 100.
Starbucks entered 2025 navigating a period of brand recalibration in the United States. The choice to anchor Hello Again to AC/DC's Thunderstruck rather than a gentle, introspective tone was a deliberate strategic signal — loudness as credibility, spectacle as sincerity. The Super Bowl pre-game slot, one of the most competitive advertising environments in the United States, communicated that Starbucks was not retreating but re-engaging at full volume.
The strategic framing centres on what Lieberman described as a reintroduction, per Stories Starbucks — language that acknowledges drift before asserting direction. The campaign positioned Starbucks not against a single product rival but against a broader cultural perception that the brand had moved away from its original craft-and-community identity. In the United States, the branded coffee shop segment is intensely competitive. McDonald's McCafé and Dunkin' have both invested significantly in value-positioned coffee offerings targeting everyday occasions, while independent coffee shops represented a meaningful share of the broader market according to estimates cited by dataintelo.com. Starbucks, operating at the premium end of the category, faces pressure from both the value tier below and the specialty-roaster tier above.
Tressie Lieberman articulated the creative rationale in terms that connected energy to authenticity, stating that the music "brings the energy and felt fitting for reintroducing Starbucks to the world," as quoted by shots.net. The campaign sits within a lineage of Starbucks brand storytelling — the brand previously partnered with Taylor Swift in 2022 on a fall-themed video connected to the Red (Taylor's Version) release, per thecreativesroom.com — but Hello Again marks a shift from cultural co-authorship toward direct brand assertion. Using a track as globally recognisable as Thunderstruck placed the campaign in a register of confidence rather than collaboration.
Nicolás Méndez directed Hello Again for Anomaly LA. The film's creative approach drew its structure from a reunion narrative — the idea, expressed by Christopher Owens as quoted on shots.net, that the campaign captures the feeling of returning to those very first moments when you first met something you loved. That emotional architecture shaped every production decision, from the warmth of the in-store photography to the kinetic editing rhythm that mirrors the momentum of Thunderstruck.
The 90-second lead film established the full narrative arc, privileging close-range imagery of baristas at work, hands on cups, steam, and the tactile rituals of drink preparation. This visual grammar directly supported the strategic intent: to make the craft visible and to place human beings — specifically Starbucks employees — at the centre of the brand's identity claim. The 60-second Super Bowl pre-game version condensed that arc for the United States broadcast context, while the 15-second post-game cut served a conversion function, directing audiences toward the Starbucks Rewards programme, as reported by Finance Yahoo.
The use of AC/DC's Thunderstruck as the campaign's sonic foundation was not incidental. The track carries a specific cultural charge — anthem-scale recognition, physical momentum, and an association with return and triumph that aligned precisely with the campaign's reintroduction narrative. Anomaly LA's decision to set a barista-forward, coffee-craft story to one of rock's most recognisable guitar riffs created a tonal contrast that functioned as the campaign's primary creative proposition: the familiar made electric. The UK adaptation, with its localised voiceover and script adjustments per lbbonline.com, confirmed that the creative framework was built to travel, even as the United States remained the primary stage for the campaign's launch moment.
No verified performance data for the Hello Again campaign is publicly available. Starbucks and Anomaly LA have not published figures for reach, recall, Rewards programme uptake, or sales impact attributable to the campaign. What can be assessed is structural effectiveness.
The campaign made consequential choices in its distribution architecture. Premiering on Fox's Super Bowl LIX pre-game broadcast on February 9, 2025, placed Hello Again in front of one of the largest single-night television audiences in the United States, as the Super Bowl consistently ranks among the most-watched broadcasts in American media, per adweek.com's longstanding coverage of the event. The 15-second post-game execution added a direct-response layer to a brand-building foundation — a structure that addresses both long-term brand equity and short-term conversion in a single campaign deployment.
The international rollout pattern — UK on February 25, France in April and May 2025 per resto-today.com — suggests that the United States launch was designed as a proving ground for a globally scalable creative platform rather than a market-specific activation. The France distribution across TF1, M6, Prime Video, and Netflix represented a broad-reach media mix that mirrored the campaign's ambition.
The Clapboard Score of 61 out of 100 reflects a campaign that lands its emotional premise and earns its production scale but stops short of the creative specificity that would make it genuinely distinctive. The reunion metaphor and the Thunderstruck soundtrack work together efficiently; the question the score surfaces is whether efficiency alone, in a category as crowded as Drinks (Non Alcoholic), constitutes a durable competitive advantage.
Starbucks Hello Again is a 2025 brand film created by Anomaly LA. It debuted on Fox's Super Bowl LIX pre-game broadcast on February 9, 2025, in the United States. The campaign uses AC/DC's Thunderstruck to reposition Starbucks around its founding coffee-and-craft identity, foregrounding baristas and in-store drink preparation as the brand's core promise.
Nicolás Méndez directed Hello Again for Anomaly LA. The film's visual approach centres on baristas, tactile drink preparation, and warm in-store imagery. Méndez built the narrative around a reunion structure, capturing the emotional feeling of returning to something loved, as articulated in campaign commentary reported by shots.net.
Starbucks used Thunderstruck to signal confidence and energy rather than quiet introspection. Global Chief Brand Officer Tressie Lieberman stated the music felt fitting for reintroducing Starbucks to the world. The track's anthem-scale recognition gave the campaign a tonal contrast — pairing barista craft with rock momentum — that defined its creative proposition.
Hello Again premiered in the United States on February 9, 2025, during Fox's Super Bowl LIX pre-game show. A 15-second post-game execution followed on February 10, promoting Starbucks Rewards, as reported by finance.yahoo.com. The campaign ran in 90-second and 60-second versions, with the Super Bowl pre-game slot serving as the primary United States launch moment.
Hello Again extended internationally after its United States launch. A UK version with a localised voiceover launched February 25, 2025, per lbbonline.com. France followed in April 2025, with digital out-of-home placements in shopping centres and video distribution across TF1, M6, Prime Video, and Netflix running through June 2025, according to resto-today.com.
Hello Again received a Clapboard Score of 61 out of 100. The score reflects a campaign that successfully delivers its emotional reunion premise and justifies its production scale. It identifies a gap in creative specificity — the question of whether the Thunderstruck-and-craft-coffee combination is distinctive enough to sustain competitive advantage in the Drinks (Non Alcoholic) category long term.
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