Tassimo has launched a national integrated marketing campaign in support of its personal coffee brewing machines.
Developed by Ogilvy & Mather with media support from MediaVest, “The Barcode Brews It Better” campaign includes English and French TV and sponsorship of Breakfast Television by Tassimo coffee makers, as well as print, social media, direct mail and in-store demos.
Luke Cole, brand manager for Tassimo—a division of Kraft Canada—says there has been an explosion in the so-called “on-demand coffee” (or single-cup coffee maker) segment, with overall sales for the category up 105% year-on-year, according to AC Nielsen Data.
Cole said home coffee drinkers are looking to upgrade the quality of their homebrew and replicate the café coffee experience at home.
“In the past, the marketing strategy has really been about on-demand brewers and it was enough to impress the consumer by saying this coffee maker makes one cup of coffee at a time,” said Cole. “Now what’s happening is there are a whole bunch [of entrants in the category] and consumers don’t really understand the differences between them.”
To ensure that Tassimo stands out from the competition, the company’s 2010 marketing spend will be about 10 times what it was last year, said Cole.
The new campaign focuses on Tassimo’s key distinction: the fact that each machine is equipped with a barcode reader that reads a barcode on each hot beverage “T Disc” and adjusts everything from water temperature, water amount and brew time to make the optimal beverage. “It allows a Starbucks cappuccino to taste like a Starbucks cappuccino,” said Cole.
The TV executions feature a top-down view of one of the T Discs that rapidly zooms in on the barcode, which transforms into a line of people all dressed in white and black.
“I’m totally psyched to be in this barcode,” says one extremely animated character. “C’mon Tassimo brewer, read me. I’m ready.” When another person asks why he’s so excited, a colleague explains that he’s on his third cup of coffee of the day.
There is also a 45-second cinema spot, and Tassimo will distribute 600 of the machines to what Cole called “online influencers.”
The campaign debuted Nov. 1 and runs until the end of the year. It is Tassimo’s biggest marketing initiative of the year, and coincides with a key sales period for the brand, Cole said.
