Brand loyalty or innovation?

Which to choose for your coffee company?!

A battle of two coffee articles… The coffee Thunderdome!

In the past couple of weeks I’ve read this article from Mintel, “The Coffee and Coffee Shop Industries: What Consumers Want in Coffee.”  It tells us that brand loyalty is king when coffee drinkers are financially squeezed. 

Then there’s this article from Coffee Intelligence, “Coffee consumers want choice – brand loyalty is dying.”

Consumers are brand loyal on one hand.

Brand loyalty is dying on the other hand.

As my 4 year old would say, “What the heck?!”

I don’t blame you if you’re reeling and confused!

Let me help sort you out with nine words:

Know who you are. Know who your customers are. 

I love this quote from World Barista Champion Dale Harris, “If you’re not innovating, you need to find the more stable customers. Both of them are viable directions, but getting stuck in the middle is really dangerous.”

What he’s talking about here (in the Coffee Intelligence article) is that it’s important to either:

Stand out (through innovation) or

Become a stable, super familiar and relatable brand. 

Why?

Because the market is saturated with bags of high quality roasted coffee. 

Consumers are now aware that they can get the same coffee from different roasters!

So you stand out OR build strong familiarity.

It’s tough to have both.

As Mintel says, “The main purchase drivers for coffee remain familiarity and indulgence.”

As we know from the pandemic and The Great Recession before it, consumers continue buying coffee when times are tough. It’s an affordable luxury. 

Going the super-familiar-brand-loyalty route is entirely viable.

Here’s’ what it takes:

• Strong marketing skills

• A customer-first mentality

• Content marketing chops to back it up

• A repeatable, hands-off customer journey

Want to take the other route and be an innovator?

(a coffee pro after my own heart, you are!)

Here’s what that takes:

• Strong project management

• Cross-departmental collaboration

• Clarity on your voice of the customer

• A process for getting from idea to implementation

Remember: Being super niche and very specific about who you are and who you serve makes you speak more clearly. 

Don’t try to be for everyone. If you speak to everyone, you speak to no one.