New Friendsgiving: 300 strangers share a free meal in Santa Monica
Thanksgiving is for family. Friendsgiving is for friends. We built a coalition with DoorDash to start a holiday for strangers, and 300 people showed up.
A new holiday for making friends with strangers, to take on America's loneliness epidemic.
- Client
- DoorDash
- Year
- 2021
- What we did
- Campaign, PR, Strategy, Branding, Website
- Result
- A coalition-backed new holiday, launched in LA
Thanksgiving is for family. Friendsgiving is for friends. New Friendsgiving is for strangers. Buena built a coalition of DoorDash, No More Lonely Friends, The Deep and YourMomCares to host a free public picnic in Los Angeles on November 20, 2021, where people made new friends over free food and conversation games.
America came out of lockdown lonelier than ever
By 2021 loneliness had become a public-health story. Our campaign site put it in plain numbers: 185 million Americans say they're lonely, loneliness rose 2.5 times during the pandemic, and its effects have been compared to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Many people craved real connection but didn't know where to begin. Making a new friend as an adult is awkward, and a year of distance had made it harder.
It also wouldn't fix itself once the pandemic was over. We wanted a reason, and a permission slip, for strangers to sit down together.
What gets people to talk to a stranger? A free meal
Food has brought strangers together for as long as people have eaten. We wanted to know what it would take to move someone from 'unwilling' to 'willing' to talk to a stranger, so we ran a survey.
The answer was simple. It was a free meal.
That insight started as a pitch to DoorDash and The Deep called Deep Meals, a free meal you could only eat with a stranger over Zoom. New Friendsgiving took the same insight off the screen and into a park.
A new holiday for making friends with strangers
Thanksgiving is for family. Friendsgiving is for friends. New Friendsgiving is for strangers: a yearly day to break bread with people you've never met, which anyone can host wherever they live.
We built a coalition to make it real. No More Lonely Friends, the community Marissa Meizz started after her viral TikTok, brought the crowd, and DoorDash brought the food. The Deep brought conversation games, and YourMomCares, a kids' mental-health nonprofit founded by celebrity moms, brought attention.
Buena made the brand, the website and the campaign. We also brought the partners together around one day.
A free picnic for strangers in Santa Monica, November 20, 2021
The first New Friendsgiving was a free picnic at Ocean View Park in Santa Monica. It started at noon on Saturday, November 20, 2021, open to anyone who showed up.
All you had to do was come and be you. We provided the food, the conversation and the connections.
The recap film shows blankets spread across the lawn in the sun. Groups of people who'd just met sit in circles, talking.
Free food
Provided by DoorDash, for anyone who came.
Free games
Conversation games from The Deep to get strangers talking.
New friends
With the help of No More Lonely Friends and its community.
Thanksgiving is for family. Friendsgiving is for friends. New Friendsgiving is for strangers.
Gallery
In the news
New client: DoorDash signs on to feed a holiday for strangers
America came out of lockdown lonelier than ever. We asked DoorDash to bring the one thing that gets strangers talking: a free meal.
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