Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf 2010 Winter Holiday
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is a successful regional U.S. brand with a solid international footing in Asia and the Middle East. It has 750 stores in 22 countries and competes with Starbucks, Peet’s as well as local cafés and roasters. Given their limited budget and the fiercely competitive marketplace, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf needed an outstanding 2010 holiday campaign that would gain the buy-in of franchisees and drive store traffic in the face of blistering competition.
The Two West Solution:
We leveraged the Two West WaveMaking process, which is our methodology for winning shoppers through emotion.
- Ripple: Scanning the waters for opportunity.
- Swell: Forming an unstoppable idea.
- Surf: Turning momentum into action.
Ripple: Scanning the waters for opportunity
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf’s marketing budget did not allow for region–specific executions. Since the campaign would have to operate across countries and cultures, Two West immediately engaged their in-house anthropologist to identify overarching cultural themes, sensitivities, similarities and differences. At the same time, the account team conducted a wealth of market research to help inform a potential solution. They worked hand-in-hand with the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf team to better understand the nuances and drivers of their customers. Next, they completed a full competitive analysis of the marketplace to make sure any ideas were unique and truly differentiating. Finally, they reviewed previous holiday and marketing campaigns to identify which types of campaigns, themes and executions performed best in the past.
Research yielded key insights Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf would be able to leverage in creating its holiday campaign.
- Since the brand was founded in Southern California, customers outside of the U.S. view the brand as being a “Hollywood” brand and see the brand as being aspirational.
- Any use of religious imagery was deemed highly volatile; especially in certain geographies.
Swell: Forming an unstoppable idea
Building on our research, Two West used its finding to create three campaign concepts. We were able to utilize our anthropology-based learning to identify which themes, visuals, colors and tones would be most appropriate and accepted across cultures. We then worked with Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, relying on their keen understanding of their customers and franchisees, to choose the concept that would not just communicate well across cultures, but also increase store traffic and sales.
Surf: Turning momentum into action
Using the learning from Two West’s external research and a review of previous campaigns, Two West created a “Winter Holidays” campaign based on warm reds, cool blues, snowflakes, stockings, decorated trees and gingerbread cookies. This spoke well to our Southern California customers, and also provided an aspirational feel for customers outside of the U.S. while being mindful of cultural sensitivities.
In addition, to provide a unique and more differentiating campaign, Two West updated the traditional Santa Clause character by replacing him with a much thinner, taller and more broadly appealing feminine character “Lumina.” To help customers get into the holiday “spirit” and help embrace Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf’s core principle of social responsibility, we partnered with The Help Group, a team selected as the official cause program for the “Holiday Campaign.” Customers could either donate directly, or purchase specific products where a portion of the proceeds would be donated to The Help Group. We then helped build a sense of community in the stores by rewarding each person who made a donation by posting a star with their name on it. This was an integrated effort including posters, gift cards, packaging, merchandising, POS and menu board treatments.
The Results
While specific results are closely guarded, both Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf corporate marketing and franchisees provided enthusiastic feedback. From corporate, we heard that this was the most creative and best executed holiday program that they ever had. In addition, we heard from multiple franchisees that they saw an increase in gift cards, holiday gift packs, store traffic and overall store sales.