• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, September 28, 2012

Green Mountain Coffee is launching an integrated campaign aimed at raising mainstream consumer awareness of the benefits of fair trade coffee.

The Green Mountain brand offers one of America’s largest selections of Fair Trade Certified coffee, and its parent, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (which also produces Tully’s Coffee and through licensing, Newman’s Own Organics coffee) is the world’s largest purchaser of fair trade coffee. 

The campaign is tied to October’s designation as Fair Trade Month, spearheaded by Fair Trade USA, the nonprofit that oversees Fair Trade Certification.

Among other elements, the “Great Coffee, Good Vibes, Pass It On” campaign will offer live-streamed concerts by brand spokespersons Grace Potter and Michael Franti (on Oct. 9 and Oct. 24, respectively) via the brand’s Facebook page and on YouTube. 

Videos of the musicians’ visits to Green Mountain’s fair trade coffee farms in Columbia and Sumatra will also be accessible via a new “fair trade” tab on the brand’s Facebook page. That tab also features educational information about how fair trade sourcing improves coffee farmers’ lives and enables Green Mountain to work with farmers to produce better coffee for the brand’s consumers.

Other campaign elements include:

* A sweepstakes with a grand prize of a trip to Costa Rica, a Fair Trade source country.

* Print ads in magazines including People, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone and Better Homes and Gardens.

* Digital ads on Spotify, Hulu, Pandora and other sites.

* Retail promotions including a national FSI; a Catalina coupon program with Kroger, Price Chopper, Meijer and Hannaford; a “take-one” shelf promotion in Kroger; and a Green Mountain brand page on the Sam’s Club site.

Y&R New York produced the digital and print creative and handled media. Other agencies contributing to the campaign include Vayner Media, Marketing Drive, Spotlight Marketing, BzzAgent and PR agency Cone Communications.