There was a time when coffee advertising meant mountain-grown beans and housewives praising the smoothness of a morning cup. Now it means five episodes of Martin Scorsese and his daughter strolling through Little Italy, pausing at a family grocer, and discussing — one presumes — matters of greater cinematic weight than whether the roast is dark or medium.
Lavazza, the Italian coffee company, has enlisted the director and his daughter Francesca for a miniseries called "Family Blend," which will unspool across the brand's digital channels beginning this month. The campaign, which leans heavily on the word "blend" in both its caffeinated and generational senses, follows the Scorseses to a handful of New York landmarks with personal resonance: Elizabeth Street, the Tisch School of the Arts (alma mater to both), and Di Palo's Fine Foods, the century-old grocer that has survived the neighborhood's transformation from immigrant enclave to weekend destination.
The first episode, titled "But First... Coffee," was filmed at the Martin Scorsese Virtual Production Center in Brooklyn and focuses, in what the brand describes as a humorous tone, on the family's pre-interview coffee ritual. (Whether this ritual involves strong opinions about the proper crema is not specified.)
The campaign was developed with Romilda De Luca, the entertainment marketer who founded RDL Worldwide within Publicis Groupe, and Lisa Frechette, the longtime executive producer at Mr. Scorsese's Sikelia Productions. Lavazza will distribute the episodes on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and its Amazon Brand Store; Ms. Scorsese will post them on her own social accounts as well.
It is, in its way, a logical pairing. Mr. Scorsese has spent much of his career filming New York as a place of memory and loss. Lavazza has spent much of its recent marketing budget trying to position espresso as a lifestyle rather than a beverage. In Little Italy, at least, both impulses can find common ground — preferably over a doppio.
Original story published in campaignlive.com: "A double shot of Scorsese: Martin and daughter Francesca star in Lavazza’s new miniseries | Campaign US"