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Costa launches first ad campaign to woo Starbucks customers
Contrary to popular belief, all coffee is not the same, according to a leading independent research company specialising in taste comparison tests.
The cappuccino handcrafted by Costa’s highly skilled baristas beats that of Starbucks and Nero by an unprecedented margin. A staggering 7 out of 10 people who defined themselves as “coffee lovers” preferred Costa cappuccino to that of its leading competitors in comprehensive, blind taste tests across a number of British cities.
The margin of preference over Costa’s competitors astounded Sean Chamberlain, MD of Tangible Branding, who has 10 years of experience running scientific taste test comparisons. He said: “Costa is the most successful winning product of any direct product test we have ever run across like-for-like food and drink products. We’ve never seen such a substantial win.”
Costa will capitalise on the research findings with its first ever national advertising – a confident and punchy campaign that launched on 9 March. It will run throughout the UK in national press and online, as well as regional outdoor and breakfast radio promotions. The messaging will also feature heavily in-store.
The integrated campaign was created by Karmarama (above the line) and Meteorite (below the line), with media planning undertaken by Zenith Optimedia. Costa will be spending £1.5m through the line in March and April.
Costa marketing director, Jim Slater, added: “It’s extremely rare to win a head to head blind taste test by such an emphatic margin. When you consider that most coffee drinkers currently think that all coffee is broadly the same, the time is ripe for us to agitate discussion about our product superiority. In fact, I think we’d be letting our skilled baristas down if we didn’t!”
The reason for Costa’s large margin of victory is down to the chain’s focus on the ‘three Bs’, believes Gennaro Pelliccia, Italian-born master of coffee, responsible for all coffee products at Costa.
He said: “Delicious coffee comes from having great beans, a great blend and great baristas. We scour the world to buy the best beans, blend them into a unique taste, and ensure our baristas produce superb coffee every time. These test results show that what we’re doing is right. Even with the other options out there, customers know that when they come to us, they really are getting the best quality cappuccino – and this research proves it.”
Test research background
334 coffee shop users in Sheffield, High Wycombe and Glasgow were asked to indicate a preference between Costa, Nero and Starbucks. This sample provides highly robust and accurate data.
In blind head-to-head paired comparisons, Costa is the clearly preferred cappuccino at the 95% confidence level. This means that if the test was repeated 100 times, the same or very similar results would occur at least 95 times.
Preference for Costa’s cappuccino is remarkably strong in comparison to competitors among those who identified themselves as “Coffee lovers”, with 7 out of 10 preferring Costa (with 72% preferring Costa vs 28% Starbucks; and 69% preferring Costa vs 31% Nero). Significantly, coffee drinkers who prefer Caffè Nero and Starbucks as their main outlets preferred Costa cappuccino over their preferred retailer’s product.
Source: Creativematch
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