The challenge
We’ve all had terrible coffee when visiting an office. Thankfully, there’s Selecta, the second largest provider of B2B coffee in the Netherlands. It’s a company that produces delicious coffee but it’s brand awareness was in stark contrast with the company’s success. Selecta’s spontaneous brand awareness was examined and the 12% result showed that there was plenty of room for improvement. That is when we came into the picture.
Our solution
We organised a session with the client to determine the brand purpose of Selecta Netherlands. That purpose is a genuine and inclusive one: every working person in the Netherlands deserves a good cup of coffee. And considering the poor state of coffee at many workplaces, that leaves a lot to be achieved.
The international brand concept had few approaches we could work with, so we set our minds on something new. We developed the Hotline for Mediocre Coffee. We appealed to every working person in the Netherlands to no longer tolerate mediocre (or just plainly bad) coffee. We set up an online platform in which employees could sign and promote a petition with the option of creating personalized posters to help participants convince their colleagues. On behalf of Selecta Netherlands, we facilitated a platform for all working persons in the Netherlands that enabled them to protest about the poor quality of the coffee at their offices. Johnny Kraaijkamp Jr. encouraged everyone to participate through a radio commercial, we advertised along the highway, and of course we created a big online presence.
The result
Selecta’s brand awareness saw an impressive increase: from 12% to 50% following the third and final run of the campaign. And although we had never set a real target, 1,000 petitions were created by a total of 3,000 participants. This meant that there were at least 1,000 companies where the employees were dissatisfied with the quality of their coffee. Reasons enough for Selecta to approach these companies and to invite themselves to come round for a cup of… tea.
