Emirates Leisure Group

Reimagining a modern coffee brand

Client: Hudsons Coffee

Our Role: Creative, Brand, Environmental Design, Advertising, Strategy

What's the story?

We received a call from the marketing manager at Emirates Leisure Group asking if we could come in to talk about Hudsons Coffee. What transpired was that the Hudsons brand, in order to compete in the highly competitive cafe industry, had gradually moved its communication to becoming more about food and bundled value messaging. Now although there is a lot right about the strategy, what the client was finding was that the relevance of the master brand Hudsons Coffee, was being eroded.

 

Through some analysis and research we discovered that the brand of Hudsons has a significant history in coffee. It’s a big part of their DNA but it was getting overlooked as something that was ordered to go along with the food they were buying. And so this became our strategy. We needed to turn consumers around into coming to Hudsons for the coffee, and then staying to order food. It was a case of returning to the core product offering of the brand.

How did we make
the story stick?

We decided early on, that if this campaign and brand direction was going to be successful and relevant, the change needed to begin from the product (cafe) and then move out to the communications. – WE DO WHAT WE SAY.

 

 

 

 

So with this in mind we developed a new look and feel for the stores. The look was highly visual and luxuriated in the black coffee and cream tones. The images were a love story to the coffee making process. These visuals showed extreme close ups with shallow depth of field, focusing on the beauty and simplicity of making great espresso coffee. We then graded and layered these shots with hand crafted type that spoke to our dedication to coffee. When put together the complete package was both appetite appeal and simple communication.

 

 

 

Hudsons-work-Case-study.005

 

 

 

Sales at the rebranded Hudsons outlets saw significant gains and the store design is rolling out nationally. Importantly, more people were coming into the store and the average amount they purchased was also up. Strong research numbers also told us:

 

•  Over 53% of people coming in store recalled the advertising,

•  83% said it gave an impression of quality coffee.

•  76% said the experience in store was matched by the advertising.

•  63% of people would be happy to recommend Hudsons to their family and friends.