Douwe Egberts Brief

Douwe Egberts

Generate excitement about Douwe Egberts coffee, and create a desire for better coffee at home

Background

Douwe Egberts has been roasting and blending coffee since Egberts Douwes opened his first shop in the Netherlands, in 1753. Since then it’s grown and become the third largest coffee roaster in the world. In countries like the Netherlands, Germany and France, Douwe Egberts ground coffee enjoys a commanding market presence, and in the Netherlands it outsells even Coca-Cola!

Douwe Egberts came to the UK in 1984 with a range of instant coffees and two years later brought it’s ground coffees to market. With its established heritage in Europe and superior quality, Douwe Egberts Ground coffee quickly became the market leader in the UK. Never one to rely on its heritage, Douwe Egberts has been at the forefront of innovation, and created the single serve coffee segment with the launch of the Senseo system in 2001.

Over the last 10 years, Douwe Egberts have tried to maintain relevance with consumers, through new products such as the Inspirations range of Instant coffee, and the new-look range of ‘Lifestyle’ ground coffee. In the last year, we have also launched our new brand identity, with the hope of appealing to younger consumers. Most recently we have launched ‘The Flavour Collective’ – a range of three flavoured instant coffees designed to bring variety for coffee lovers and engage younger consumers with instant coffee.

Coffee, and more broadly hot drinks are becoming the territory of older drinkers, and that is particularly true for Douwe Egberts. Our main consumers are 50+ with very few younger people choosing to drink coffee at home.

Background to the Business

For more than 250 years, the company and the Douwe Egberts brand have been synonymous with high quality coffee. This global company is one of the largest dedicated players in the industry, with revenues of €2.6bn for the fiscal year ending in July 2011 and almost 7,500 employees. They are the third largest manufacturer in the world with ambitions to move up to second place through a combination of expansion, innovation and value-added offerings. Their craftsmanship and knowledge of coffee is built on decades of experience and insight into our consumers’ preferences.

This is a highly competitive industry; the brand’s ambitious plans for growth are underpinned by ‘Challenger’ and innovative thinking.

Background to the Category

Over the past five years, world retail coffee sales have grown year on year by almost 8%, growth has come from every segment within premium coffee sales. The wider availability of high-quality coffee, the fact that most High Streets now have up-market coffee shops and more knowledgeable consumers keen to sample different varieties of coffee are the primary drivers of growth.

The Douwe Egberts Brand in the UK

This brief covers Douwe Egberts coffee in the UK. The brand in the UK has a retail value of £64m. The largest part of the portfolio is Instant coffee valued, followed by Ground coffee and then Single Serve Pods.

The brand in the UK has a mission to ‘Challenge and disrupt the category by building a dynamic brand that consumers love’.

The brand vision is to ‘Inspire and surprise shoppers and consumers to discover and explore the brand’s coffee experiences’.

Brand positioning: Coffee is one of life’s pleasures. Here at Douwe Egberts our master blenders draw on 250 years of experience to bring you the distinguished coffee experience you deserve.

Brand essence: No one knows coffee like we do.

The brand behaviours: Passionate, confident, daring, knowledgeable, expert, optimistic, authentic, warm, trustworthy, engaging, ‘Challenger’, brave, modern traditional, premium, versatile, loyal.

Brand assets: Heritage (250 years of expertise), roasting and blending expertise,the brand name, iconic packaging, master blenders.

The brand acts as a ‘Challenger’ brand, believing ideas are the currency that fund growth, they outsmart rather than outspend. Trying to do more with less is a thought central to the brand’s ‘Challenger’ approach. As the brand isn’t market leader they make sure they make their stamp by being ‘Thought Leader’ in the category.

The Challenge

As the drinks market becomes even bigger, with different kinds of water, energy drinks, fruit teas and infusions, coffee is becoming ever-more sidelined at home, and the coffee shops are picking up that custom. Douwe Egberts coffee has a lot of ‘love’ from people, and a high awareness of the brand name, but people tend to associate it with their parents and grandparents, and the special coffee that gets bought at Christmas. Because of this, the DE brand is seen as old-fashioned, out of touch, and irrelevant to consumers. Whilst our 250 years of heritage are what make us special, it also makes us look old!

We have recently become a pure-play coffee & tea company, DE Masterblenders 1753. This means that now we are totally focussed on creating excellence in every cup of coffee we make. We employ some of the best blenders, roasters and tasters in our business, who live & breathe coffee every day. See the links section to find out more on our website.

The Brief

Develop a creative campaign, new product, new packaging or communications idea for Douwe Egberts in the UK to appeal to younger consumers, to increase their awareness of Douwe Egberts and ideally have a theme that can extend across different media. It needs to present Douwe Egberts as a brand that is contemporary, without losing its heritage and expertise. We know that people in the 18-30 age bracket will happily spend their money in a Starbucks or a Costa, but not drink coffee at home. The challenge in this brief is to find a way of making coffee drunk at home as appealing as coffee drunk in a coffee shop.

Creative Requirements

To get younger people to re-appraise or discover the Douwe Egberts brand. Generate excitement about Douwe Egberts coffee, and create a desire for better coffee at home using any form of communication you feel appropriate. Get younger people talking about Douwe Egberts Coffee in a positive way, and try to shake the ‘old-fashioned’ image, without losing the heritage and expertise.

You can incorporate ‘For the Love of Coffee’ or ‘No-one knows Coffee like we do’ (our taglines) into the piece, but that is not essential. The new brand identity, logo and packs can be found in the project pack.

Target Audience

Coffee Lovers & Coffee Connectors. 25+, demographic classification ABC1, educated, a thirst for knowledge, curious, pursuers of pleasure, like to travel, experimental, foodies, passionate, love life, pay for quality.

Brand Benefits

At Douwe Egberts, we’ve been roasting and blending coffee for over 250 years, which means nobody knows coffee like we do. Every cup of our coffee is expertly blended, roasted and tasted by our Master Blenders to ensure that it’s perfect before it leaves our factory.

Mandatories

The DE logo (red seal + wording) must be used, this is included in the Project Pack. The Brand Guidelines that you’ll find in the Project Pack refer to our corporate logo so please disregard this and just use the relevant information within the guidelines.

The creative/campaign/product must bring a modern/contemporary feel to the brand.