A coffee chain told by its own baristas, filmed in the hour before forty shops open their doors.
First Pour
.
+27%
Sales before 9 a.m.
Fernhill Coffee
Food & drink
· 2025
Client
Fernhill Coffee
Sector
Food & drink
Markets
UK
Channels
Creators · Social · Retail
Timeline
10 weeks, then always-on
Fernhill had forty coffee shops and no famous founder. We made its baristas the face of the brand, filmed in the hour before the doors open.
The challenge
Every coffee ad is a latte heart.
Three bigger chains had ten times Fernhill's media budget, and all of them sold the same thing: a cup, a smile, a price. Fernhill's regulars knew their baristas by name, but nobody outside the shops did, and the brand's own channels showed more cups than people.
Fernhill Hackney, 05:52. The first grind of the day, filmed by the barista on shift.
The idea
Meet us before we open.
First Pour gave forty baristas a phone rig and one brief: film the hour before opening. The delivery, the dial-in, the first shot pulled, tasted and poured away. We cut their footage into a daily series and printed the barista's name on every cup they made that week.
Campaign still from the morning rush, and a barista's own clip of the first shot of the day.
What we made
A daily creator series run by the staff, with a shot list, a weekly edit and a fee for every barista who filmed.
Phone rigs and training for 40 baristas
Daily First Pour series for TikTok and Reels
Named cups and in-shop print
Paid social between 6 and 9 a.m.
Tasting nights hosted by the baristas
Ten weeks in
+27%
Sales before 9 a.m.
9.4M
Views of the barista series
3×
Job applications per opening
“Our baristas were always the reason people came back. Now they are the reason people come in.”
