Spotting your favourite coffee shop
How we consume our coffee around the world varies hugely, but in major cities coffee shop chains, with
their distinctive branding, are a familiar sight. How do they compete on the high street? One way is to
make sure that we perceive, and pay attention to, the brand with which we are familiar (see Figure 5.5).
When we spot the colour and logo of a familiar brand, be it in Melbourne or Stockholm, we know what to
expect and may feel safe and comfortable. Therefore consistency and distinctive- ness in the visual
presentation, colour, and style are critical.
Figure 5.5 A famous coffee shop Source: © iStock.com/ilbusca.
An interesting trend is towards ensuring that the store design retains the brand distinctiveness, but also
speaks to the local market. Starbucks famously tries to have an individualized design aspect for each of its
stores, while retaining the familiar Starbucks branding (Wilson, 2014). So, for example, Starbucks has
embarked on updating and revamping its London stores to reflect the variations in its markets, with the
St John’s Wood store having low-key branding in dark colours, while the Westfield Stratford shop uses
more prominent imagery of the Starbucks branding (Handley, 2013). Similarly, Costa Coffee has reported
how it adjusted its in-store design in Shanghai to relate to the younger consumers using it compared with
the UK market (Mortimer, 2011)
Questions
1. Consider two famous coffee shop logos. What is distinctive about their visual presentation?
Gaining and retaining attention through social media
In 2003, Old Spice introduced body wash for men and amassed millions of fans with a campaign that
targeted men and women, promoting what might happen if Old Spice body wash was used. The success
was largely due to the presence, style, and charisma of American actor Isaiah Mustafa, also known in the
campaign as ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’.
In 2011 the company wanted to increase the fan base on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. It cre- ated an
interactive experience where ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ responded directly to his fans on the
internet, answering questions or making suggestions related to questions that they had about Old Spice,
i.e. highly personalized messages to fans.
How did Old Spice do this? The company began the campaign using YouTube, since it allowed user
comments to be posted and had a wide existing fanbase for Old Spice. Using a program that identified
mentions of Old Spice from a range of social networking sites, the company wrote and produced nearly
200 personalized videos. They began by hitting mainstream celebrities, influencers, and fans of Old Spice,
but about 70 per cent were created in response to the man or woman in the street. On Twitter, Old Spice
gave consumers a timeline to watch the campaign unfold and allowed additional questions to ‘The Man
Your Man Could Smell Like’. The company also posted responses on Old Spice’s Facebook page for
increased word of mouth. Thus the concept of a brand message swiftly became a brand conversation
across platforms and media. On the first day of the campaign there were 5.9 million YouTube views and
by the end of the week this had increased to 40 million. Twitter followers increased by 2700 per cent.
Over three days ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ offered President Obama tips on how to court a
lady, gave his support to libraries, and introduced a new catchphrase to the world.
Nobel (2013) reports on research from Harvard Business School which identifies successful viral
advertising as having four steps:
• attracting viewers’ attention
• retaining their attention
• getting viewers to share what they have seen with others
• persuading viewers.
In the case of Old Spice the key aspect is that the viewer’s attention is grabbed and retained by the fact
that the attention is actually focused on them—the Old Spice man is speaking directly to you!
Questions
1. Read the paper summarized. Choose another high street brand and, using the colour analysis
developed in this paper, try to assess what feeling they are trying to communicate to their
customers.
2. Think of one of social media advertising that have gained and retained your attention. How have
they done it?
3. Many believe that the success of social media advertising is sharing with others. What makes you
want to share an advertisement with your friends? Think about how you would use this to
market a product of your own.
