Costa Foundation Film – Smiley Charity Film Awards 2023 Finalist

Client Brief
The Costa Foundation is the charitable branch of Costa Coffee. They raise all funds through customer donations to carry out life-changing work abroad. The client wanted a film that showed how this work supports some of the world’s most disadvantaged children. The goal was to inspire staff and customers while highlighting the Foundation’s global impact.

Our Approach
To achieve this, we focused on the people behind the initiative: the Foundation’s dedicated Store Champions. Motivated by a desire to give back to communities that grow Costa’s coffee beans, these champions developed innovative ways to raise awareness and funds. For example, they have helped build over 90 schools and 750 classrooms in ten countries.

The film also highlighted the challenges faced during the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite restrictions on collecting donations, the Foundation remained committed to involving customers in its journey. Through interviews, footage of projects, and dynamic visuals, we showed how their work changes children’s education and improves lives.

Impact and Results
The resulting film demonstrates the power of community-driven fundraising. It inspires customers and staff to continue supporting the Costa Foundation. Moreover, it clearly communicates the global reach of the Foundation’s work, showing tangible results in education and infrastructure.

By combining heartfelt storytelling with clear visuals, the film connects audiences to the Foundation’s purpose. It showcases the commitment of both staff and customers, demonstrating how their contributions create meaningful change. As a result, the Costa Foundation film not only celebrates past achievements but also encourages ongoing engagement and support, reinforcing the charity’s mission to give children a better foundation for life.

Flying Start is the global charity partnership between British Airways and Comic Relief that helps people in the UK and around the world to have the best possible start in their lives.

To provide a way of telling that story we created the storyline of a hat that was found and made its way back to its owner. To achieve this, we followed young Mohamed in rural Ghana and in the process, got a glimpse of the various ways that Flying Start has had a positive impact on him and his community.

Since the partnership began in 2010, British Airways customers and colleagues have raised over £27m, thanks in part to our films for Flying Start.

With this in-flight film shown for 2 yrs and receiving millions of viewings on BA flights – as well as over 16,000 views on YouTube – it’s probably our most-seen piece of work yet!

Bruna’s Story is an exercise in how to show the colour in a grim reality. For this secondary film to the main British Airways Flying Start shown in-flight, we spent two days following one of the main characters in the lead film, Bruna, in her life around the favelas and in her project where she could enjoy her love of ballet.

With a bespoke camera rig, and by using our fluent Portuguese to conduct interviews and get closer to the subject, we worked with a local fixer to give us access and a chance to forge meaningful relationships. We opted for the personal narrative rather than a project overview to give context to the impact it has on these vulnerable children’s’ lives.

With our main Flying Start film reaching over 148,000 hits on YouTube, we’re very happy that Bruna’s story has helped promote the caring, humane side of British Airways.