• Marketer Gems
  • Posts
  • Chamberlain Coffee Marketing Strategy: How Emma Chamberlain Built a Gen Z Coffee Empire

Chamberlain Coffee Marketing Strategy: How Emma Chamberlain Built a Gen Z Coffee Empire

Inside the marketing playbook of Emma Chamberlain's coffee brand that went from YouTube vlogs to Target shelves

Author

Tom Snyder
October 02, 2025

Howdy, marketer! 

Emma Chamberlain started her YouTube channel in 2016, vlogging everyday moments that frequently featured her making coffee. 

By 2019, when she was barely old enough to sign business contracts, Chamberlain Coffee was born. 

Fast forward to 2025, and the brand sells everything from whole bean coffee to ready-to-drink canned lattes across retailers like Walmart, Target, and Whole Foods.

The whole thing feels like a case study in how the creator economy flipped traditional brand building on its head. 

While legacy coffee brands spent decades building trust through consistency and quality messaging, Chamberlain built hers through vulnerability and relatability.

Today's Treasure Trove

What’s Chamberlain Coffee?

Quick Stats:

Emma Chamberlain’s YouTube: 12.1M subscribers

Chamberlain Coffee launched in 2019, starting with coffee beans and drink accessories before expanding into flavored matcha and ready-to-drink canned beverages. 

The social stats matter because they represent built-in distribution that most startups would kill for. 

The brand deliberately doesn't heavily feature Emma on product packaging. With this, they're building something that could theoretically outlive the hype cycle that created it.

The products themselves hit this sweet spot between premium and accessible. And, the product line also follows trends like matcha, which also became a bestseller. 

Read more in this Deep Dive: Fenty Beauty

Who Actually Buys This Stuff

The obvious answer is Gen Z who generally prefer cold beverages like cold brew. 

These are people who grew up watching Emma's videos.

But the brand has also evolved to be more inclusive of other age groups sharing similar values.

The brand's RTD (ready-to-drink) lattes launched with almond and coconut milk containing only one gram of sugar, specifically formatted with better-for-you attributes to catch eyes on Walmart shelves. 

That's not Gen Z pandering; that's understanding that health consciousness and sustainability matter across generations now. Gen Z's increasing consideration of sustainability in food purchases influenced the brand's commercially compostable coffee pods, but those pods appeal to millennials and Gen X too.

How They Actually Sell Coffee

The marketing playbook for Chamberlain Coffee reads less like traditional CPG strategy and more like a masterclass in community building. 

Videos about Chamberlain Coffee have amassed views in millions on TikTok, and most of that content is user-generated. People making their morning matcha lattes, showing off their Chamberlain Coffee hauls, creating recipes with the products.

The retail strategy is equally deliberate. Unlike many 2010s brands that went exclusively direct-to-consumer with heavy VC backing, Chamberlain Coffee opted for an omnichannel approach early on. 

They started online, built a base, then expanded to Target, Walmart, Sprouts, and specialty retailers like Erewhon. The RTD lattes rolled out exclusively at Walmart in April 2023.

This retail expansion required rethinking their positioning. Marketing outside their core demographic meant adding value propositions on can packaging and emphasizing better-for-you attributes. 

You can't assume a sixty-year-old shopping at Walmart knows who Emma Chamberlain is, but you can assume they care about ingredient quality and sugar content.

Collaborations That Actually Make Sense

Where Chamberlain Coffee gets interesting is their approach to partnerships. 

They partnered with Swoon to launch specialty matcha lemonade drinks, tapping into the matcha trend before it fully exploded. 

A collaboration with cookie dough brand Deux created co-branded coffee donut holes, complete with a Los Angeles coffee shop takeover.

The wildest one has to be when Chamberlain Coffee partnered with hair care brand IGK to create a limited-edition matcha dry shampoo. On paper, that sounds absurd. Coffee brand makes hair products? 

But it works because matcha is a recognizable part of the brand identity, and beauty products fit naturally into Emma's content universe. 

Campaigns Chamberlain Coffee Could Do Next

The obvious move is geographic expansion. 

The brand has traction in major US markets, but there's room to grow in secondary cities and college towns where Gen Z density is high. Pop-up cafes in unexpected locations - not just LA and New York, but places like Austin, Nashville, Boulder - could generate massive social content while testing physical retail concepts.

Subscription boxes feel almost too obvious, but done right, they could work. Not a generic "coffee of the month" thing, but curated seasonal collections with exclusive flavors, maybe including products from brands Emma genuinely loves. Make it feel like getting a package from a friend who knows you and has great taste.

International markets present a huge opportunity, especially in countries where American creator culture has influence. Australia, UK, parts of Europe. Coffee culture varies wildly by region, so products would need localization, but the brand identity translates.

Education content represents untapped potential. Not boring "here's how to brew coffee" tutorials, but Emma-style content about coffee sourcing, sustainability, the people who grow the beans. Gen Z cares about supply chain ethics; give them transparency wrapped in storytelling rather than corporate responsibility reports.

Wrap Up

Chamberlain Coffee has something most competitors don't: a founder who's genuinely engaged and willing to evolve. 

The brand exists in this interesting space where the creator economy meets traditional CPG. 

The coffee is legitimately good, the branding feels cohesive without being try-hard, and the business strategy seems sustainable rather than explosive. 

Where many influencer brands feel like cash grabs, Chamberlain Coffee reads like someone actually cared about building something lasting. 

Whether it lasts remains to be seen, but five years in, they're doing something right.

✌️,

Tom from Marketer Gems