SEATTLE’S BEST COFFEE
Making premium coffee accessible to all
The Situation
Seattle’s Best was a neglected company. Withering sales, generic image, irrelevance. The only way to get them out of their decade long slump was a total brand reinvention, which challenged how the entire industry and culture thought about coffee.
The Solution
Together, we saw a gap between premium, complex coffee products and cheap, low-brow coffee products. On top of that, American culture viewed coffee only as utilitarian, serious and masculine. We defined the upscale middle ground as a blend of premium and mass appeal and replaced complex geographical identifiers with fun, easy-to-understand experiences. To do this, we had to massively transform the corporate culture, business model, products, retail presence, image and messaging of Seattle's Best Coffee.
Branding
Positioning
Visual Identity
Guidelines
Packaging
Typography
User Experience
Interface Design
Integrated Campaign
Brand Activations
The Level System
In order to simplify the coffee buying experience, we dramatically transformed coffee packaging from confusing names of roasts and countries to levels. Number 1 is a light roast. Number 5 is a dark, rich roast.
Bright Spot Cafés
We didn’t set out to build traditional cafés. We refused. We redefined the model by conceiving of a new kind of coffee culture. A fun, approachable space of shared energy. Instead of simply building another version of the gentle haven for personal coffee moments, we set out to design an immersive experience that felt open to everyone. A light, bright welcoming experience built around the coffee counter.
Brand Launch
Along with the new identity, there was a need to introduce consumers to the new Seattle’s Best brand and their mission to be available ‘Anywhere Great Coffee is Needed.’ So we turned this mission into a fully integrated communications campaign, with print, digital and films. The idea being that no rest stop is too remote and no break room too windowless, you’ll find Seattle’s Best Coffee ‘Anywhere Great Coffee is Needed’.
Declare Your Level Sampling Event
To kick off the launch of the Levels system, we wanted to personally thank the first people in America to pre-order a sample of Seattle's Best Coffee on-line. It's the Declare Your Level Show: a first ever, 24-Hour live improv comedy event, hosted entirely on Facebook, with the world's best improv troupe, The Second City. The event took a cast of 27 performers, over a 100,000 pre-orders were given out, and over 1000 custom skits were sent out to new fans.
Brewlanthropy
Have you ever noticed that those doing the most good, do so with the worst coffee? That the ones whose dedication to good is so far above the bar, while their coffee is so far below it? Well, we did. That’s why we set out coast-to-coast on a mission to deliver great coffee to people doing great things. Turning coffee into philanthropy, America votes on the people doing the most good on the worst coffee, and they get a grant for years worth of coffee and financial support to their cause.
1000 Cups
It’s one thing to say you are about great coffee anywhere, it’s another to go out and prove it. To kick off the brand in Canada and high-light our new store locations, we hit the road on an epic trip that covered the continent, handing out 1000 cups of fresh coffee to anyone who needed a coffee. The project yielded an image bank for use in brand artwork and communications. The stories of the people we met—pilots, chain saw carvers, rodeo clowns, street artists and others—merged with ours to redefine coffee culture as fun, optimistic, and everyday.
