Folgersdeck

Strategy Sisson9.17.2013

Patrick Sisson

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Challenge

Maintain Iconic Image While Appealing to the Changing Habits of Young Consumers

• Through classic advertising campaign such as “The Best Part of Waking Up,” Folgers Coffee has become an indispensable part of consumer’s morning rituals and developed a deep association with the best parts of starting your day (optimism, waking up a loved one with breakfast, sharing a reflective moment with those you care about).

• While Folgers is still the best-selling coffee brand in U.S. supermarkets, and was ranked the No. 1 CPG coffee brand of the year in the 2013 Harris Poll EquiTrend rankings, trends among millennial consumers suggest that coffee consumption is rapidly changing. More boutique products and customized, targeted marketing campaigns, which directly address the habits and values of these consumers, are needed to expand recognition and acceptance with young coffee drinkers.

Target Insights

Twenty- to thirty-somethings aren’t drinking their parent’s coffee.

Target Insights

• They’re schooled in coffee.Their increased sophistication, knowledge, and in some

cases snobbery, about coffee, production and appreciation means brands must give them a premium product with a story that resonates.

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Target Insights

• They want something that aligns with their values.

Fair-trade brands, and brands with the imprinteur of being independent and gourmet, gain traction – coffee is an affordable luxury and a way to express who the drinker is and

what they believe in.

Target Insights

They want rich, satisfying taste.• Increased sophistication leads to desire for a more

flavorful, rich coffee. • Gourmet coffee continues to be a significant portion of

total coffee consumption – indicating that consumers want to maintain coffee quality even as the economy is uncertain. (NCA USA)

• 34% of coffee drinkers get prefer premium brands of coffee.

• Gourmet Coffee Beverages skew younger, with 41% of consumers age 25-39 consuming them in the past day

Brand Insights

• Folgers has a rich history and legacy that speaks directly to the millennial desire for authenticity. As opposed to new brands currently sweeping the marketplace, Folgers has the legacy and origin story that today’s young consumers seek out.

• Founded in 1850’s San Francisco during gold rush era as The Pioneer Steam Coffee and Spice Mills, one of the first places to sell ground, ready-to-use coffee in the United States. It continued over the next 150 years to develop tastes standards, expand its reach, and even created a boutique brand, Folgers Golden Gate Coffee.

• Folgers has created savvy commercials and jingles – relying on the strength of previous campaigns – to appeal to a younger audience.http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lGxUl2u6wYA

• Take Away – Legacy, History, Authenticity, Realness This brand is as old as Levi’s and can tell a similar story.

Contextual Insights

Premium brands aimed at these consumers use advertising, design and positioning that play up a “heritage” and connection to the past (that they sometimes don’t actually have).

Heritage Cycles (Chicago) Poler (Portland)

Creative Sparks

DIY/Outdoors• A connection to America’s rugged, frontier

heritage can help reinforce a brand’s authenticity and realness, giving it the appeal of a boutique brand.

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Creative Sparks

Portland and San Francisco• While these cities and their hipster culture can

be endlessly spoofed (See “Portlandia), their creative communities and innovative cultures resonate withi the culture at large.

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Creative Sparks

Instagram• Brands can tell their story through visuals, and

have millennials, who gravitate towards social and mobile media, share this content.

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Creative Sparks

Heritage Fonts/Sign Painting

• Historical typefaces, highlighted in documentaries like “Sign Painters” and packaging review sites like Dieline, are a simple yet effective means of visual

storytelling.

Strategy Parameters

• American Ruggedness and Ingenuity – Connect with frontiersman and outdoorsman and their sense of optimism and self-reliance. Create a new brand called Pioneer Steam Coffee that has a connection to the past but espouses timeless values.

• Retro Packaging -- Forget the brown paper bag and use a metal tin to suggest strength, portability, the outdoors and history.

• Origin Story – Tell consumers this is a coffee brand that was built by a self-made entrepreneur when San Francisco was still being shaped and born. The dreamers, schemers and visionaries that built that city drank this coffee before they went to work.

• Camping – Build up a relationship with outdoor exploration. Utilize high-end photo shoots of campers making a fresh pot before setting off to explore America’s vast natural treasures. This reinforces the American heritage concept and creates perfect content to share through mobile social networks like Instagram.

Strategy Parameters

• Workshop It – Give away coffee to companies that symbolize the new American manufacturing renaissance, and document the experience. Think of a panorama of workers on the factory floor at Shinola, a new high-end manufacturing concern in Detroit, starting the day. This isn’t fussy coffee for mustachioed hipsters – it’s the way a real American worker gets started and gets ready for real work. This is another great social media story, and a large-scale coffee giveaway promotes Folgers’ own sense of corporate responsibility.

• Social Responsibility – Make certain free trade beans are used, and tell the story of the roasters and farmers. Connect the “work” concept above to the work that employees are doing to bring this coffee to the store.

• Keep It Simple – Do not let the copy get too bogged down in specifics about where the beans came from, and do not use dressed-up flavors descriptions that look like they came from a wine list. It’s a real, honest beverage for real, honest people.

Strategy Parameters

• Real, Not Virtual, Experience -- Don’t fetishize technology and social media that can feel more and more invasive, and like a barrier. Promote real experiences. This isn’t about being anti-tech – social media is still a key promotional channel and influencer – rather it’s about being “pro real world,” and stepping away for the monitor for a second and not missing what’s in front of you.

Mock AdPour-overs had a much different meaning when we started roasting coffee…

Started by American originals in 1850, Pioneer Steam Coffee grew up in a different San Francisco: the lure of the West Coast wasn’t tech firms and IPOs, it was a chance to build your own legacy with your bare hands; the hip startups in town were shipbuilders, prospectors and merchants; and you liked, not “liked,” what your friend had to say.

People in town used to roast their own beans before we set up shop, before gold miner and carpenter James Folger built what would become The Pioneer Steam Coffee and Spice Mill. When you taste a cup of our special dark roast, we like to think you can tell that we put as much care and hard work in our product as James. After all, there are plenty of frontiers left. We just want to give you the jolt you need to explore them.

Pioneer Steam Coffee: The original coffee of the American frontier.