Challenges and Objectives

In 2025, Nescafé made its biggest play in iced coffee, launching Espresso Concentrated: a category-first liquid coffee that made barista-quality iced coffee effortless at home.

The opportunity was huge. Iced coffee had become the drink of a generation, with Starbucks, Costa and the coffee-shop culture Gen Z craved defining the category. But while Nescafé was one of the world’s most recognisable coffee brands, to younger consumers it felt like the coffee of yesterday.

And this wasn’t just a new product, it was a new behaviour; a new way of making coffee completely.

Nescafé approached ITV with a challenge: launch a brand-new take-home category while making the brand relevant to a new generation. It wasn’t enough to prove Espresso Concentrated could make great iced coffee at home. Nescafé had to earn its place in iced coffee culture.

Idea & Implementation

For the first time ever, Love Island had an Official Iced Coffee Partner. Nescafe Espresso Concentrated became the iced coffee of the villa - stocked in the kitchen and enjoyed by Islanders throughout the series as they debriefed, flirted and fuelled each morning. The product didn’t sit around the programme, it became part of one of its most iconic rituals.

This was Nescafé’s first Love Island partnership - and a seismic leap for the company: a Nestlé brand betting a new launch on reality TV that some pundits still dismiss as “trash”. To reflect our commitment to their bravery, we went the extra yard. Three different flavours, nearly 1000 bottles shipped to Mallorca and set perfectly in the garden kitchen. We went all in on the ritual. Espresso Concentrated seen in-action on screen 3,000-plus times as the islanders made and ordered it organically. Independent valuation by Nielsen valued the product placement alone at £22m.

Because the launch had to teach as well as tantalise, we filmed how-to content with Islanders before they entered - education Nescafé then ran on its own paid channels. We took First Look, the show’s most anticipated daily teaser drawing 248m views (+2.6% on Series 11), swapping the bottle flavour on the social bumper every day to drive range awareness six days a week. A full licence added an O2 experiential with Curtis Pritchard, competitions, PR and in-store.

Targeting Strategy

Love Island didn’t create Britain’s obsession with iced coffee. It reflected it. Every day, millions watched Islanders make iced coffees for the people they liked most. The ritual had become shorthand for romance, reconciliation and flirting; so ingrained in the programme that viewers expected it as much as the recouplings. If we could place Nescafé at the heart of Love Island’s iconic morning ritual, we could earn the brand a place at the heart of iced coffee culture.

Client Quote

“ITV didn’t sell us product placement - they handed us the villa’s own coffee ritual. That’s how our brand became the iced coffee Gen Z couldn’t stop talking about, or drinking.”

TASH LEWIS, NESTLÉ UK