Kickstart your heart with Kicking Horse Coffee

Kicking Horse Coffee is introducing its bold new brand platform, Kickstart Your Heart, designed to stand out in a crowded market and capture attention with its fresh, dynamic approach.

Marking its first-ever North American ad campaign, this highly caffeinated call to arms, developed by Lifelong Crush, and set to a legendary hard-rock anthem, brings the brand’s rebellious, authentic, and heart-of-gold spirit to the global stage.

“Kickstart Your Heart is a love letter to everything Kicking Horse Coffee is,” said Lori Hatcher-Hillier, Chief Marketing Officer at Kicking Horse Coffee. “After years of perfecting our craft, we’re ready to share our story through our first major brand campaign. Our new platform ties together our values, our origins, and our commitment to quality, bringing them to life in a way that matters. Never half-assed.”

Directed by Merchant's The Perlorian Brothers, the campaign’s 45-second anchor spot opens on a donkey looking wistfully at the sun-splashed horses trotting past the humble barn where he spends his days.

His routine is dull and unvarying…until he spots a cobweb-covered motorcycle in the back of the barn. The sound of a revving engine signals the start of the music. At the same time, the song’s breakneck opening accompanies a colour-splashed visual of the donkey barreling out of the barn, riding the motorcycle, and doing a donut before going full-throttle into the surrounding valley and onwards to the rest of the world.

The energetic and heartwarming spot captures the exhilaration that a good cup of coffee can provide and serves as an urgent reminder not to let life pass you by. In other words, be that donkey.

The video spot is airing on TV and online across Canada and the US as part of a fully integrated campaign that includes cinema, paid social, digital, and an extensive out-of-home component with billboards, TSAs, and wild posters. The entire campaign is led by a brand strategy and platform visual identity developed by Lifelong Crush, with media planning and buying by Epitaph and public relations by Agnostic.