Montreal coffee company Van Houtte is now serving a back-story with its beans. 
The gourmet coffee company has teamed with Sid Lee on a series of educational videos housed on its blog, “C! The Coffee Blog.” The five-part series, “Van Houtte: A coffee with history,” focuses on various aspects of coffee culture, including its on-the-go nature, the story behind the Americano, and the advent of the coffee break.
The videos are between one and two minutes long, and feature interviews with Canadian academics specializing in fields such as anthropology and history. The series debuts tomorrow on the Van Houtte blog, and will be updated weekly through April 17.
Interview subjects include Brian Cowan, a professor at McGill University’s department of history and classical studies and author of the 2005 book The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse and Lee Joliffe, associate professor, faculty of business at the University of New Brunswick and author of the 2010 book Coffee Culture, Destination and Tourism.
The video series is part of an extensive content marketing strategy introduced by Van Houtte in 2011 and deployed across various social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. The latest video series comes on the heels of a fall series entitled “Timeless Trends.”
“It’s intended to showcase the expertise and heritage of Van Houtte through engaging content,” said Caroline Fournier, the company’s coffee expertise communication manager. “We are in a good place to tell the story of coffee because we’ve been around for almost a century.”
Van Houtte has several business segments including an office coffee business and more than 60 bistros throughout Quebec. It also has a robust retail presence, with both bagged and bulk coffee.
The nearly century-old company also engages in traditional marketing built around the brand positioning “Master roaster since 1919.”
