What you will find in the article:
- Exploration of coffee's cultural significance across different countries
- Brazil's unique relationship with coffee as a daily ritual
- Impact of advertising on coffee's perception and meaning
- Examples of Brazilian coffee commercials highlighting social connections
- The evolution of coffee advertising themes in Brazil over time
After all, advertising sells more than the drink itself. It also sells an idea of when we enjoy coffee, who we share it with and the part it plays in our lives. Of course, it would be far too simplistic to suggest that there is a single Brazilian, European, American or Japanese approach to coffee advertising. Individual brands have different histories, target audiences and market positions, while global campaigns often transcend national borders. Nevertheless, specific commercials offer a revealing insight into how advertisers draw on local customs, social values and the cultural meanings attached to drinking coffee.
Brazil
In Brazil, coffee advertisers have something at their disposal that most markets around the world do not: coffee is simultaneously an everyday drink, an integral part of domestic life and one of the symbols of the country itself, reflecting its status as a global powerhouse of coffee production. Brazil remains the world's largest coffee producer. For the 2026/27 season, the US Department of Agriculture forecast record production of 71.9 million 60-kilogram bags. Coffee is therefore not a product whose origins need much explanation for Brazilian consumers. It is deeply embedded in everyday life and in the country's sense of identity. Domestic consumption is equally remarkable. According to the Brazilian Coffee Industry Association (ABIC), the country consumed 21.4 million bags of coffee in 2025, remaining the world's second-largest coffee consumer. Average consumption amounted to approximately 1,400 cups per person per year, and the association reports that coffee is found in 98 per cent of Brazilian households.
But the figures tell only part of the story. In Brazilian culture, a small cafezinho is associated with getting together, welcoming visitors and showing hospitality. Academic research into Brazil's coffee-growing regions explicitly links coffee consumption with socialising, shared meals and hospitality practices. In other words, coffee naturally serves as a way of building and reaffirming relationships. Alongside the traditional cafezinho, a modern speciality coffee culture is also flourishing. A good illustration is the São Paulo Coffee Festival, which brings together roasters, cafés, tastings, workshops, food, music and coffee education. The 2026 edition took place in the Bienal Pavilion in Ibirapuera Park, with a programme that included micro-roasters, sensory experiences and specialist workshops.
This cultural background helps explain the distinctive tone of Brazilian coffee advertising. In commercials for 3 Corações and Melitta, coffee is rarely presented as a symbol of unattainable luxury. Far more often, it is woven into ordinary situations, relationships and sensory experiences. An advert might be about love between people, the pleasure of rain, the work of coffee growers or the different moments that make up a day. There is no need to prove that coffee is part of everyday life: Brazilian viewers already know that. Instead, advertisers seek to give something deeply familiar a fresh emotional significance.
In 2015, 3 Corações illustrated this approach particularly clearly in its commercial ‘Cupido’. The campaign, ‘Deixe o Café 3 Corações apaixonar você’, quite literally cast coffee as a catalyst for falling in love. A man makes himself a coffee and catches sight of a woman in the window opposite. Steam rising from his cup takes the imaginary form of Cupid's bow and arrow, and the theme of falling in love then spreads to other people across the city. The campaign began airing in Brazil on 19 July 2015 and was produced in several versions of varying lengths. The brand itself described the idea as an attempt to associate coffee with affection and special moments between people.
Video: 3 Corações – Cupido
Two years later, in 2017, the brand developed its Cupid theme in the campaign ‘Cupidos Produtores’. This time, the focus shifted to the people behind the coffee. The advert follows growers, harvesting and other stages of coffee's journey from bean to finished cup. In doing so, the creators linked the slogan ‘Sabor que Apaixona’ (‘A Flavour to Fall in Love With’) to the care that goes into coffee long before consumers brew it.
In the 2020 campaign ‘Nós Amamos Café’ (‘We Love Coffee’), 3 Corações went even further in exploring coffee's place in daily life. The commercial featured, among others, DJ Alok, chef Alex Atala and former Brazilian footballer Denílson. Coffee connects the different scenes, appearing as a natural companion to life's many moments, whether people are overcoming challenges or simply enjoying themselves.
Video: 3 Corações – Nós amamos café
Melitta also explored the pleasures of ordinary life in its 2018 commercial ‘Chuva’ (‘Rain’). Built around a conversation between two friends, the advert celebrates life's small, enjoyable moments. It formed part of a new brand communications concept, ‘Melitta. Café fresquinho para sentir mais a vida’ – fresh coffee to help you experience life more fully.
Video: Café Melitta
In 2022, Melitta also took the idea of ‘feeling more of life’ into its regional advertising in Minas Gerais. As part of the campaign, the brand asked local people how fresh coffee helped them appreciate life and its small pleasures more intensely.
Despite the differences between the brands, these Brazilian examples share a central idea: coffee is an inseparable part of the lives people are already living. It brings people together, awakens the senses, evokes the product's origins and provides a welcome companion during both work and leisure.
Colombia
In Colombia, coffee advertising is particularly closely tied to the question of origin. Coffee is not simply a drink, but an important part of the country's economy, landscape and international image. According to the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros, Colombian production reached approximately 13.7 million 60-kilogram bags in 2025, while domestic consumption amounted to 2.28 million bags. The country's exceptional relationship with coffee is also reflected in the Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2011. It encompasses six agricultural landscapes and 18 urban settlements, and UNESCO describes it as the result of more than a century of coffee growers adapting to challenging mountainous conditions.
It was precisely this connection between coffee, the landscape and the people who cultivate it that provided the foundation for a remarkably successful advertising strategy. According to an analysis by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in the late 1950s only four per cent of American consumers even knew that Colombia produced coffee. Colombian growers therefore began systematically using the coffee's Colombian origin to differentiate it from competitors. By 2004, awareness of Colombia as a coffee-producing country exceeded 91 per cent in key markets.
The best-known symbol of this strategy became Juan Valdez, a fictional Colombian coffee grower accompanied by a mule. He began appearing in television commercials in the 1960s, reminding consumers that every cup of coffee has a real place, landscape and human effort behind it. The focus of the advertising was therefore not just the person drinking the coffee, but also the person who grew it.
In a 1982 commercial, Juan Valdez was already an instantly recognisable symbol of Colombian origin. The mountain scenery, coffee plants and grower were not merely decorative: they made a case for the product's authenticity and quality.
Video: Classic Juan Valdez Colombian Coffee (1982)
The same idea was developed further in a commercial from the mid-1980s, in which Juan Valdez hand-picks coffee cherries, emphasising that the quality of the finished cup begins with the harvest. A 1990 advert likewise used Juan Valdez as an immediately recognisable emblem of Colombian origin.
Japan
Japanese coffee culture brings together worlds that may seem almost contradictory at first glance: traditional kissaten coffee houses, meticulously prepared speciality coffee, instant drinks and the iconic canned coffee sold in vending machines and konbini convenience stores. Coffee can be the focus of a carefully observed gastronomic ritual or simply a quick pick-me-up during the working day. According to the All Japan Coffee Association, Japan consumed 397,272 tonnes of coffee in 2025, making it the world's fourth-largest coffee consumer. Alongside the mass market, the country's speciality coffee culture is highly developed. The SCAJ World Specialty Coffee Conference and Exhibition attracted 96,823 visitors and 500 exhibitors in 2025, with participants from dozens of countries expected in 2026. Japanese coffee culture thus spans everything from a can grabbed on the way to work to one of Asia's largest events devoted to speciality coffee.
The working day itself became central to the advertising identity of Suntory's BOSS brand. Launched in 1992, it positioned itself as coffee for working people, a position it retains to this day. Suntory still describes the brand as a ‘companion to working people’. Here, coffee is not an exceptional moment of luxury, but a short break, a boost and a small reward during an ordinary day. Since 2006, this idea has been developed particularly vividly in the ‘Alien Jones’ series starring Tommy Lee Jones. The Hollywood actor plays an extraterrestrial who tries to understand the people of Earth by taking on a wide range of jobs and observing their working lives. With a playful sense of humour, the series depicts everyday fatigue, routine and the little moments that make a working day more enjoyable.
The 2023 commercial ‘Town Revitalization’ is set in the tourism department of a small municipal office, where staff are struggling to find a way to attract visitors. An official and his colleague head out into the streets with Craft BOSS coffee in search of inspiration, only to discover a crashed UFO on the outskirts of town, with Alien Jones standing beside it. The chance encounter gives the official an idea: to turn the town into a UFO-themed tourist destination. Before long, the once-sleepy place is bustling with visitors. Coffee accompanies both a break from work and the moment a new idea is born.
Video: Suntory Boss – Town Revitalization
The series explores the same idea in other situations. In the 2021 commercial ‘Dreamland’, Jones watches an employee of a closing amusement park who must make a fresh start in a new workplace. The 2022 advert ‘Forbidden Planet’ offers an even more striking metaphor: work grinds to a halt across an entire planet, prompting society to realise just how much it depends on the everyday labour of others.
Turkey
In Turkey, coffee advertisers have no need to invent a ritual around their product. The ritual has existed for centuries and carries its own social significance. Coffee is served during visits, conversations, celebrations and engagement ceremonies, and the tradition even includes fortune-telling from coffee grounds. Turkish coffee culture was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2013.
Yet Turkish coffee culture is not simply a thing of the past. Alongside traditional preparation methods, the contemporary café scene and speciality coffee culture are developing rapidly. In September 2026, the Istanbul Coffee Festival brought together traditional and modern coffee, gastronomy, music and urban culture. According to Hürriyet Daily News, 162 brands took part, with a programme featuring tastings, workshops and discussions on roasting and different brewing methods.
The meeting of deep-rooted tradition and modern consumer habits is also reflected in advertising. A good example is Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi, a brand whose history dates back to 1871. Its 150th-anniversary commercial, released in 2022, connects the company's history with the broader idea of coffee as an integral part of human encounters and everyday life. The film draws on the brand's longevity and cultural heritage, showing how coffee accompanies people through all kinds of life experiences.
Video: Kurukahveci Mehmet Efendi – 150. Yıl Reklam Filmi
A 2026 campaign featuring Mehmet Günsür marked an interesting shift. Its series of six short films promotes not only traditional Turkish coffee, but also espresso, filter coffee, coffee beans and different preparation methods. In this way, the historic brand is responding to contemporary consumer habits without abandoning its traditional identity.
USA
American coffee culture is extraordinarily diverse, encompassing everything from classic filter coffee and café chains to drive-through outlets and a fast-growing speciality coffee sector. Even so, coffee has traditionally been consumed predominantly at home. According to figures from the National Coffee Association, in 2026, 66 per cent of American adults reported drinking coffee the previous day, and 83 per cent of those coffee drinkers had consumed it at home.
This strong tradition of home coffee consumption also underpins the longstanding advertising approach of Folgers. While other brands transport consumers to elegant cafés or carefully stylised settings, Folgers finds its most powerful stories in the kitchen, in early-morning routines and in the family home. In 1984, the brand introduced the slogan ‘The Best Part of Wakin’ Up Is Folgers in Your Cup’, which became one of America's best-known advertising jingles. The following year saw the release of the Christmas commercial ‘Peter Comes Home’, which captured the connection between coffee and home with striking simplicity. Peter returns home early on Christmas morning. He and his little sister make coffee, and its aroma gradually wakes the rest of the family, who discover that their son has come home. The brand returned to the same idea in a 2009 commercial.
In its 2026 campaign ‘The Best Part of Wakin’ Up’, Folgers updates its famous slogan and jingle for a new generation of consumers. ‘Waking up’ is no longer associated solely with getting out of bed in the morning, but more broadly with the moment when someone becomes fully engaged with the day and everything happening around them. Folgers thus retains its familiar image of coffee as part of everyday life, while giving it a more contemporary, dynamic expression.
Video: Folgers – The Best Part of Wakin’ Up
Another interesting US example is Community Coffee, a family business founded in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1919. Its founder, Henry Norman ‘Cap’ Saurage, originally served his own coffee blend to customers in his shop and noticed that people would stop for a cup, have a chat and form connections. The brand took its name from this local community. The business has remained in the Saurage family for five generations, and its marketing makes considerable use of those roots. Rather than focusing solely on flavour, its advertising centres on family, neighbourhood, regional heritage and the idea of coffee bringing people together. The brand also has a long advertising history: as early as 1957, television commercials for Community Coffee were being created by Jim Henson, who would later become famous as the creator of the Muppets.
This approach is neatly encapsulated by the 2024 ‘Generations’ campaign, created to mark the brand's 105th anniversary. The commercial takes viewers through successive periods in Community Coffee's history, from the founder's original shop to the present day, showing several generations brought together over coffee. It is therefore about more than nostalgia: the central message is that, as generations change, coffee continues to provide a way for people to meet and build community. The campaign ran on television, streaming platforms, digital media and social networks.
Video: Community Coffee – Generations (2024)
Other commercials suggest that, alongside its family history, the brand also draws on coffee's origins, everyday life and rural American settings. The commercial ‘Sourcing’ turns attention to where the coffee comes from, while ‘Rancher’ makes use of a distinctly American ranch setting. Community Coffee thus embodies a different kind of American advertising identity from that of global premium brands. Here, coffee is not a symbol of luxury, but something that connects families, local communities and successive generations.
Europe
Finally, we return to Europe. There is, however, no single European style of coffee advertising. Individual countries have different coffee cultures and advertising traditions, and they draw on different ideas of what coffee means to consumers. Nevertheless, several recurring themes emerge from selected European campaigns. Advertisers may appeal to the comfort and familiarity of home and tradition, or equally to elegance, individuality and premium quality. The importance of coffee rituals is also highlighted in a study of the British market published in the academic journal International Journal of Food Design. The authors analysed 35 video adverts from 11 coffee brands released for British audiences between 2013 and 2018. Among other things, they examined the extent to which these adverts depicted real consumer rituals associated with making and drinking coffee. Their findings showed recurring elements such as the home environment, the presence of other people, methods of coffee preparation and the enjoyment of drinking it.
Brands of Czech origin, such as Jihlavanka and Dadák, base their advertising primarily on tradition, familiarity and everyday life, whereas Nespresso emphasises premium quality and elegance and Lavazza celebrates Italian enjoyment and the social ritual of coffee.
Jihlavanka is now owned by the German company Tchibo, but its advertising has long emphasised honesty, traditional craftsmanship and the familiar world of home. This is clearly illustrated by the 2001 commercial ‘Pekař’ (‘The Baker’), built around the simple themes of aroma and traditional work.
Video: Jihlavanka – Voní hezky
It was around this time that Jihlavanka began using the slogan ‘Poctivá káva’ (‘Honest Coffee’). The theme of craftsmanship later resurfaced in a 2014 campaign featuring an innovative shoemaker.
The Dadák brand has even older Czech roots. Its history began in 1905 in Valašské Meziříčí. Today it is part of the JDE Peet's group, and Jacobs Douwe Egberts continues to operate a production facility in the town, locally known as Valmez. Dadák's advertising primarily draws on tradition, regional roots and longstanding coffee-roasting expertise. In the 1999 commercial ‘Můj synu…’ (‘My Son…’), these themes are expressed through the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next and a belief in tradition.
Video: Dadák – Můj synu
Both brands demonstrate how a distinctly Czech advertising identity can endure regardless of who currently owns the business.
Nespresso represents a very different face of European coffee advertising. The brand was established in 1986 and makes a point of emphasising its Swiss roots. Nespresso belongs to the Swiss company Nestlé. Its research and development are carried out in Switzerland, where the brand also manufactures and packages its coffee capsules.
In its advertising, however, Swiss origins are generally not expressed through folklore or regional traditions. Instead, the brand draws on values associated with Swiss identity, such as precision, quality, technological innovation and control over the finished product. The capsule itself transforms coffee preparation at home into a standardised ritual: consumers are promised a premium result that is easy to achieve time after time. Since 2006, George Clooney has played a central role in this identity. The first campaign featuring Clooney also introduced the slogan ‘What Else?’, which became a longstanding and instantly recognisable part of the brand.
The 2022 ‘Unforgettable Taste’ campaign featured George Clooney alongside Jean Dujardin and Camille Cottin. In a comic storyline, the three compete for the last Nespresso capsule, once again associating coffee with elegance, celebrity and a premium experience. At the end of the commercial, the brand also draws attention to the possibility of recycling its aluminium capsules. The campaign launched in more than 20 European countries, including the Czech Republic.
Video: Nespresso – How far would you go for the Unforgettable Taste of a Nespresso coffee?
That same year, Nespresso also launched an awareness campaign entitled ‘The Empty Cup’, distributed primarily through digital channels and social media, which raised questions about climate change and the future of coffee cultivation. This time, George Clooney is holding not a cup of premium coffee but an empty cup, symbolising the risk that climate change could threaten the cultivation of high-quality coffee in the future. According to Nespresso, it was the first time the brand's longstanding ambassador had appeared in a campaign holding an empty cup. The campaign thus expands Nespresso's traditional image to encompass responsibility for coffee's origins and growing conditions. The empty cup offers a simple visual representation of what consumers could lose if the conditions for growing coffee continue to deteriorate.
A fourth approach to advertising is represented by Lavazza, the Italian brand founded by Luigi Lavazza in Turin in 1895. Unlike Jihlavanka and Dadák, Lavazza remains an Italian family business, owned by the Lavazza family for four generations. The Italian approach presents coffee differently from the Swiss brand Nespresso. The emphasis is not simply on technological precision, but above all on social interaction and the rituals of making and drinking espresso. Lavazza's historical archive recalls how the brand's advertising has long portrayed coffee as a way of rounding off a meal, welcoming a visitor or expressing affection through a small everyday gesture.
A particularly striking example is the ‘Paradiso’ series, launched by Lavazza in 1995. The first commercial, ‘Benvenuti in Paradiso’ (‘Welcome to Paradise’), takes the coffee ritual all the way to heaven: on arriving in paradise, the main character discovers that even there, a good coffee is indispensable. With humour, coffee is presented as such a natural and desirable part of life that it is needed even in the afterlife.
Video: Lavazza – Benvenuti in Paradiso
Lavazza, then, primarily promotes the Italian art of enjoying coffee. Humour, sociability, aesthetics and ritual evoke a lifestyle that people outside Italy can also share, at least to some extent, through the product.
Breaking the mould
And if you think coffee advertising always has to be about tradition, pleasure, family or the working day, think again. The German brand K-fee proved quite the opposite. In its famous 2004 commercial, viewers were treated to several seconds of idyllic scenery, only to be startled moments later by a screaming zombie and the slogan ‘You've never been this awake before’. The advert, known as ‘Ghost Car’, went viral online, demonstrating that pure shock value, absurdity and very dark humour can also work when selling coffee. After all, there are clearly more than enough ways to persuade someone they need caffeine.