Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte 20th Anniversary | Case Study
Case study highlighting how Starbucks celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Pumpkin Spice Latte with a multigenerational campaign built around nostalgia, culture, and one of the brand’s most recognizable products. The activation brought together a custom media partnership with People, original content featuring Ashanti, and distribution across publisher, celebrity, and Starbucks-owned channels.
The campaign reached tens of millions of consumers while giving Starbucks a cohesive creative platform that could travel across media environments, audiences, and generations.
The Challenge
Celebrate 20 years of the Pumpkin Spice Latte in a way that honored its cultural legacy while making the anniversary relevant to both longtime fans and a new generation of consumers
The Approach
Helped lead the campaign from early ideation through execution and measurement, contributing across content strategy, media partnerships, distribution, and reporting. The campaign paired nostalgia with contemporary culture, using a custom music-driven activation featuring Ashanti alongside People editorial and social content, then extending the idea across Starbucks-owned, celebrity, and publisher channels.
The Results
1. Reached tens of millions of consumers across publisher, celebrity, and Starbucks-owned channels
2. Extended the anniversary across editorial, social, video, and custom creative rather than relying on a single campaign moment
3. Connected longtime PSL fans with younger audiences through a campaign designed to work across generations
The Impact
The campaign turned a product anniversary into a cultural moment, celebrating the drink that helped define fall for a generation while introducing its story to the next one. By combining nostalgia, star power, and diversified distribution, Starbucks transformed 20 years of PSL fandom into a campaign that could live everywhere its audience did.
