Creative Stories: Joelle Murray and Grinder Coffee
How to promote a business, engage customers, and meet a Hollywood star
Joelle Murray had a problem.
The Toronto business-owner wanted to use social media to promote her coffee shop, Grinder.
But she was struggling with content.
Then she read an article about the Toronto International Film Festival, and learned that actor
Idris Elba would be among the stars soon visiting her city.
That gave her an idea.
“Why don’t I invite him to come have coffee at Grinder?” she thought. “I can get two weeks of content from that!”
She had no budget for the campaign, so she printed out a picture of Idris Elba’s face, attached it to a paint stick from Home Depot, and began the #Idrisneedsgrinder campaign.
She photographed her ‘Idris’ visiting the shops and restaurants in the neighborhood, and shared daily posts encouraging Idris to come over for coffee. Her customers joined in, too, taking photos with the Idris cut-out and posting them on social media.
Sadly, Idris Elba did not make it to Grinder, but Joelle and her customers had fun with the campaign, and she managed to get a bit of local media from it, too.
Going bigger in 2018
When the film festival returned the following year, she decided to try again. She asked her customers to choose which actor to invite: Dame Judi Dench, Ryan Gosling, Samuel L. Jackson, or Julia Roberts.
The Canadian-born actor Ryan Gosling won the vote, and the #ryanneedsgrinder campaign took off.
Joelle went to a local print shop to get a life-size cut-out of Ryan Gosling to use for the campaign – but the $300 price tag was beyond her budget.
“What can you give me for $50?” she asked.
She was able to get a head and shoulders cut-out of Gosling, and added a photoshopped Grinder logo to a coffee cup he was holding.
Her 10-day campaign included pictures of the Gosling cut-out visiting neighborhood shops – and promises to keep the ‘Hey Girl’ chat to a minimum if he visited.
The best return on a $50 investment
On the ninth day of her campaign, a big car pulled outside Grinder’s entrance.
And Ryan Gosling accepted Joelle's offer for a cup of Grinder coffee.
Joelle was shocked, and word of Gosling’s visit to the shop soon went viral.
Business boomed over the next few days as people wanted to see the coffee shop Ryan had visited, and get their picture taken with the Grinder Ryan cut-out.
Even a year later, Joelle still had visitors from all over the world – including Russia and Korea – wanting to see the place where Ryan Gosling had coffee.
“I didn’t really expect Ryan Gosling to come to my coffee shop,” she said.
“I didn’t have thousands of dollars to spend on a campaign. I’m not a PR person or a marketer.
"I just wanted to do something fun for my customers and promote my business.