Taika Waititi had done his research, so he knew that his unusual first name had Scandinavian roots even though he’s a native New Zealander. He’d once searched for all the Taikas in the world through social media, with somewhat cringe-worthy results.
“It was me and 36 Finnish girls,” the actor-director told Adweek. “I left that Facebook group pretty quick.”
Nowhere in his hunt had he turned up a San Francisco-based company that makes premium coffee, tea and yerba mate drinks fortified with adaptogens. But a friend recently helped make the connection between Waititi and a startup called Taika. Sampling ensued, and a collaboration was born.
Waititi, who has taken the reins as Taika’s chief creative officer, is now the public face of the nascent brand. In a quirky short film, he stars twice—as himself and an “everyday hater”—as part of Taika’s most significant marketing push to date.
The tongue-in-cheek video plays off the word “taika,” which Waititi tells viewers means “big house,” “god-like person” and also “degenerate” in Japanese. But more to the point, it translates to “magic” in Finnish and manifests as “delicious creative fuel in a can.”
The long-form ad, shot in a vintage 1970s-style house in Atlanta, has Waititi touting the functional ingredients of zero-sugar Taika while announcing his “very lucrative deal” with its maker, “a small, boutique mega-corp.”
Too many tequilas
There was no formal brief for the commercial, allowing Waititi to put his own twist on the creative, which was part of the appeal of the budding relationship, he said. Plus, so much of the heavy lifting had already been done on the branding side—Waititi was drawn to Taika’s minimalist packaging and irreverent personality.
“I’ve always wanted to have a beverage of some sort,” Waititi said. “And there are too many vodkas and too many tequilas out there with celebrities attached. And this one already had my name on it.”
Waititi, who said he has a history of coffee-crash napping on film sets, wanted to align with a health-conscious brand with ingredients like lion’s mane, theanine and ashwagandha. He has replaced his 2 p.m. caffeine with Taika, which he said has yielded better results in his productivity (and fewer photos of him sleeping in the workplace).
The beverage’s positioning as a creativity booster also clicked with the TV and film director-producer behind such projects as Thor, Jojo Rabbit, What We Do in the Shadows, Reservation Dogs and Our Flag Means Death and ad campaigns for Belvedere vodka, Old Spice, Samsung and others.
