Starbucks joins the brands that have chosen hand-drawn illustration and animation for their Christmas campaigns this 2026. The coffee chain has presented “Perfect Harmony”, an advertisement created together with the agency Anomaly and the artist Geoff McFetridge that uses its characteristic coffee glasses as a support to create a small animated universe of characters, music and Christmas encounters.

The 30-second piece features a band of musicians who split up and end up reuniting during a Christmas celebration. Accompanied by the song “Happy Together” by The Turtles, the narrative uses simple illustrations, animated movements and settings inspired by Starbucks coffee shops and seasonal products to convey a message about the importance of sharing moments with others.

The particularity of the work lies in its creative process. Geoff McFetridge has hand-drawn the elements of the animated universe using Sharpie markers directly on the Starbucks cups, a support that is part of the visual identity and experience of the brand.
The artist, who is collaborating with Starbucks for the second consecutive year, has also developed the illustrations for the outdoor advertising campaign, extending the same graphic language to different media.

The proposal recovers the aesthetics of spontaneous drawing, with simple strokes and characters with a handmade appearance. The choice thus connects with a practice recognizable to Starbucks consumers: handwritten notes on the cups, which for years have been part of the relationship between employees and customers.

Starbucks joins Prada and Dior in its commitment to traditional animation
The campaign comes after the two luxury brands have also presented Christmas ads developed around hand drawing.

In the case of Prada, the brand has combined real actors with illustrated characters and settings in its “Drawing Prada: Animated by Hand” campaign, developed with the participation of veteran Disney animator John Pomeroy.
For its part, Dior has turned to French filmmaker Sylvain Chomet to create “Christian Dior’s Night in Color”, a traditional animated short set in Paris in 1949, which recovers techniques associated with animated cinema from the mid-20th century.

Starbucks’ proposal is considerably simpler in its execution and duration, but it shares with both brands the decision to make hand drawing a recognizable part of the campaign’s identity.

The coincidence is interesting in a context of growing use of generative artificial intelligence tools in advertising production, showing different ways of reclaiming artisanal processes as a creative and differentiation resource.