Our Work
Explore how Channing & Company builds Better Brands by Design.
Filter by
Coffee Uplifts People x NYCWFF: Integrated Marketing & Brand Activation
Turning a Major New York Food Festival into an Integrated Platform for Brand Growth
Introduction
New York City has long been a global destination for food, hospitality, and culture. The 2023 Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival brought nearly 50,000 food lovers, celebrity chefs, winemakers, and culinary personalities together for four days of experiences across the city. Coffee Uplifts People joined the festival as a featured brand, introducing new audiences to its products, purpose, and growing hospitality platform.
Led by Channing Bailey, Channing & Company developed an integrated campaign connecting CUP’s festival presence with media strategy, campaign key art, consumer promotions, and experiential marketing. The creative system extended across branded environments, digital content, festival listings, email and SMS communications, product demonstrations, sampling, panels, gifting, and first-party audience capture.
The campaign expanded through NYCWFF PreHeat, a hospitality and programming experience held at CUP Soho inside Shopify NYC. Developed through CUP’s brand partnership with Shopify NYC, the activation used chef programming, product discovery, and community engagement to drive foot traffic while extending the festival beyond its official footprint.
Together, the campaign and activation transformed CUP’s NYCWFF participation into a connected platform for brand awareness, customer acquisition, hospitality, and partnership marketing. The program generated 100% product sell-through, more than 8,000 new email and SMS sign-ups, and over 103,000 impressions.
The Brief
Participation in a major festival could create visibility, but visibility alone would not produce sustained growth. CUP needed to stand apart within a crowded event environment, introduce the product to new customers, strengthen its position within New York’s hospitality community, and create value that continued after the festival ended.
The assignment was to develop a cohesive campaign around CUP’s NYCWFF presence and connect the temporary festival experience to the company’s broader retail, digital, partnership, and customer-engagement ecosystem.
The Strategy
Channing Bailey organized the campaign around one central objective: turn festival attention into an owned audience.
Rather than approaching NYCWFF as a standalone activation, Channing & Company connected campaign identity, media, programming, hospitality, consumer promotions, and customer acquisition into one system. Each touchpoint was designed to move audiences from awareness to participation, product trial, purchase, first-party sign-up, and continued engagement.
The strategy focused on four priorities:
Create a Recognizable Campaign
Encourage Active Participation
Extend the Festival Through Shopify NYC
Convert Attention Into Continued Engagement
The Central Concept
From Festival Appearance to Connected Brand Platform
The campaign was built around the idea that a major cultural moment should create more than temporary exposure.
NYCWFF provided the audience and cultural relevance. CUP supplied the product, purpose, and hospitality. Shopify NYC provided an established physical platform for entrepreneurship and commerce. Channing & Company connected the three through a coordinated system of campaign design, programming, media, and customer acquisition.
This expanded CUP’s role from festival participant to active cultural and hospitality partner.
Campaign Identity and Key Art
Channing Bailey developed campaign key art that gave CUP’s NYCWFF participation a distinct and recognizable identity. The system created continuity across digital promotion, email and SMS, social content, festival listings, partner communications, event materials, and onsite applications.
The key art was not treated as a decorative event graphic. It served as the campaign’s organizing device, helping audiences recognize the program across channels and understand the relationship between CUP, NYCWFF, and Shopify NYC.
Consistent messaging and visual direction allowed the campaign to move between festival, retail, hospitality, media, and digital environments without becoming fragmented.
New York City Wine & Food Festival (NYCWFF) Brand Activation
CUP’s official festival presence translated the campaign into a direct consumer experience. Branded environments, product sampling, demonstrations, gifting, and conversation introduced audiences to the coffee while communicating the company’s larger mission.
The activation was designed to create several levels of engagement. Guests could discover and taste the product, learn about the brand, participate in programming, purchase available inventory, and join CUP’s email and SMS community.
This combination of product experience and audience acquisition helped convert a short interaction into a longer customer relationship.
NYCWFF PreHeat at CUP Soho
CUP Soho operated inside Shopify NYC as part of an established brand partnership. Channing Bailey developed NYCWFF PreHeat to use that relationship as an extension of the festival and a driver of physical traffic.
The program brought chef appearances, hospitality, product discovery, storytelling, content, and community engagement into CUP’s owned experience within Shopify NYC. It gave CUP greater control over the environment while connecting Shopify’s entrepreneurial audience with the visibility surrounding NYCWFF.
PreHeat also lengthened the life of the campaign. Instead of limiting participation to CUP’s official festival footprint, the program created another destination where consumers, partners, and talent could engage with the brand.
Production and Execution
Channing Bailey directed the strategy, design, and execution of the campaign while leading an eight-person CUP team across the festival and Shopify NYC programming.
The work required coordination among NYCWFF teams, Shopify NYC, participating talent, production partners, vendors, and CUP staff. Campaign creative, programming, staffing, inventory, logistics, approvals, consumer communications, data capture, and measurement were managed as parts of one system.
This integrated approach protected the customer experience across every environment while allowing the team to respond to the pace and complexity of a major citywide festival.
Integrated Media and Consumer Promotions
The media strategy coordinated CUP’s owned channels with festival and partner communications. Campaign key art, branded content, social media, email, SMS, listings, talent participation, onsite signage, and customer communications carried one connected narrative.
Media supported more than awareness. Calls to action directed audiences toward programming, CUP Soho, product discovery, and first-party sign-up opportunities. This allowed the campaign to support brand visibility, foot traffic, consumer engagement, and measurable customer acquisition simultaneously.
Impact
CUP’s NYCWFF campaign demonstrated how integrated marketing can make one cultural moment work across multiple business objectives.
The program created visibility, encouraged trial, generated product demand, expanded CUP’s first-party audience, strengthened its Shopify NYC partnership, and positioned CUP Soho as a destination for hospitality and cultural programming.
What began as participation in a four-day festival became a connected platform for media, commerce, customer acquisition, partnership marketing, and long-term brand growth.
100% Product Sell-Through
CUP sold through all available activation inventory, converting product discovery and festival interest into direct demand.
8K+ New Email and SMS Sign-Ups
The campaign built a substantial first-party audience that CUP could continue reaching through its owned customer channels.
103K+ Impressions
Festival communications, partner promotion, branded content, social media, email, SMS, and onsite visibility extended the campaign beyond its physical footprint.
Expanded Foot Traffic Through Programming
NYCWFF PreHeat used hospitality and cultural programming to direct guests into CUP Soho inside Shopify NYC, strengthening the value of the existing brand partnership.
One Connected Customer Experience
CUP appeared consistently across NYCWFF, Shopify NYC, CUP Soho, partner channels, campaign media, and physical consumer touchpoints.
Turn Your Next Brand Moment Into a Growth Platform
Channing & Company develops integrated marketing campaigns that connect strategy, creative direction, media, key art, partnerships, programming, and experiential activation. We help brands transform events and cultural opportunities into measurable platforms for audience growth, customer acquisition, and commerce.
Tell us about your brand, campaign goals, audience, location, timeline, budget, partners, and required scope.
Frequently Asked Questions about Integrated Marketing
An integrated brand activation connects the physical experience with campaign creative, media, content, partnerships, consumer promotions, and customer acquisition. Rather than producing an isolated event, it creates a coordinated system that supports awareness, engagement, conversion, and continued communication.
Channing & Company begins with the business objective and audience experience. The studio then connects strategy, creative direction, programming, media, partnerships, production, and measurement so every part of the activation contributes to the same goal.
Yes. Channing & Company creates campaign concepts and key art that can scale across digital advertising, social media, email, websites, event environments, partner channels, printed materials, and consumer promotions.
Yes. Registration, email and SMS capture, product trial, promotional offers, QR codes, loyalty enrollment, content, and post-event communications can turn event participation into a measurable customer-acquisition program.
Programming gives audiences a reason to enter and engage with a partner environment. Talks, demonstrations, tastings, panels, workshops, and cultural experiences can generate foot traffic while creating shared value for the host, participating brand, talent, and audience.
Yes. Channing & Company develops brand strategy, integrated campaigns, hospitality marketing, experiential programs, consumer promotions, digital platforms, and partnership activations for food, beverage, restaurant, retail, and hospitality organizations.
Yes. The studio can lead the engagement or work alongside internal marketing teams, agencies, media partners, producers, venues, vendors, sponsors, talent, and operational stakeholders.
Clients should share the business objective, target audience, timing, location, available budget, existing brand partners, media requirements, production needs, success metrics, and any confirmed event or campaign parameters.