Cos­ta Cof­fee’s Pro­mo­tion­al Kit Helps Bring The Brand’s Per­son­al­i­ty To Life

Cos­ta Cof­fee has turned to brand­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions agency Our Design Agency (ODA) to sup­port with the deliv­ery of its first brand colour toolk­it to assist with embed­ding con­sis­ten­cy across its inter­na­tion­al mar​kets​.As a glob­al brand, Cos­ta Cof­fee cur­rent­ly serves 31 mar­kets includ­ing Chi­na, UAE and the UK. As the brand con­tin­ues to enjoy growth, there was a clear require­ment to ensure that glob­al part­ners were pro­vid­ed with a con­sis­tent repro­duc­tion of the brand’s icon­ic Cos­ta Cof­fee Red in order for them to pro­duce and deliv­er on-brand assets in-market.

Hav­ing worked with Cos­ta Cof­fee for four years on refin­ing the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence across its UK store estate, ODA worked in part­ner­ship with Cos­ta Cof­fee to deliv­er the first brand colour toolk­it as the cof­fee shop chain entered its next phase of growth.Grant Willis, Cre­ative Direc­tor at ODA, says: ​“For Cos­ta Cof­fee to tru­ly own its brand colour, it must be accu­rate­ly repro­duced across all dif­fer­ent touch­points. Until now, there have been fluc­tu­a­tions across its estate, so there was a clear oppor­tu­ni­ty to work in part­ner­ship to address this and cre­ate a toolk­it to ensure consistency.”

ODA’s brief was to cre­ate the defin­i­tive Cos­ta Cof­fee Red colour, then work with the brand’s part­ners to ensure it could be repro­duced across each of the dif­fer­ent sub­strates with­in a store, from exte­ri­or sig­nage to packaging.Willis says: ​“Even though the book is intend­ed for exter­nal sup­pli­ers, we set out to cre­ate some­thing with real Cos­ta Cof­fee per­son­al­i­ty. There are ref­er­ences to paint pots and brush­es through­out. We also used a cof­fee stir­rer in the paint pot as a visu­al pun to under­line the impor­tance of this colour to Cos­ta Coffee.”

The book has been designed with print­ers and sup­pli­ers in mind. Each sub­strate has been includ­ed as either a page or a tile, which can be removed from the book and matched on-press to ensure the most accu­rate reproduction.Each book also con­tains two swatch books – one on coat­ed paper and the oth­er uncoat­ed – so print­ers can retain a phys­i­cal sam­ple for future reference.Matthew Williams, Direc­tor of brand and insight at Cos­ta Cof­fee, says: ​“The faith­ful repro­duc­tion of our icon­ic Cos­ta Red is vital for main­tain­ing brand con­sis­ten­cy as we expand around the world. This was a com­plex and painstak­ing job that ODA han­dled bril­liant­ly. Adding some of our brand per­son­al­i­ty to the guide book was an inspired way of get­ting the mes­sage across. We’re delight­ed with the result.”

Check out the full arti­cle here.

Read the Cos­ta Brand Colour Toolk­it Case Study here.

9 Sep­tem­ber, 2018 | Natal­ie Mouradian