CostaX

Giv­ing Cos­ta Express the X factor

  • Brand Strategy
  • Proposition
  • Naming
  • Visual identity
  • Verbal identity
  • Brand guidelines
  • Brand film
  • Brand launch

The chal­lenge for Cos­ta Express wasn’t sim­ply sell­ing more beans and machines. It was steer­ing an entire busi­ness into its next era of growth. For years, Cos­ta Express was defined by one icon­ic machine which was bril­liant, but lim­it­ing. The busi­ness was rac­ing ahead with new solu­tions, new sec­tors and new audi­ences, yet the brand sto­ry stayed stuck in hard­ware. The real pow­er had shift­ed to the intel­li­gence behind it, so we reframed everything.

Cos­taX became an inte­grat­ed, insight-led cof­fee plat­form built to scale: a uni­fied suite of killer propo­si­tions, a bold smart-tech iden­ti­ty, and a data engine, the Cos­taX Cloud, designed to unlock con­tin­u­al advan­tage. With a sim­ple ecosys­tem, clear­er val­ue and a mis­sion to solve unmet cof­fee needs, the brand sparked fresh ener­gy across the organ­i­sa­tion and set the busi­ness up to lead the future of intel­li­gent coffee.

A NEW NAME WITH THE X FACTOR

For years, Cos­ta Express name had become short­hand for one machine, even as the busi­ness was expand­ing into new spaces, new needs and new audi­ences. The com­pa­ny ambi­tion had out­grown the name, so we reimag­ined it.

We moved from a name root­ed in one prod­uct to a name capa­ble dri­ving a new pur­pose and hous­ing an entire port­fo­lio. We retained the icon­ic x from express and gave it new mean­ing in Cos­taX.

A SHOT OF EMOTION

We want­ed a visu­al that hit like a shot of emo­tion. So we flipped the clas­sic milk shot on its head by cre­at­ing a surge of colour against deep black, a blend of sen­so­ry cof­fee ener­gy with the sharp­ness of tech.

The flu­id forms nod to flavour and tex­ture; the palette sig­nals intel­li­gence and inno­va­tion. Togeth­er they cre­ate a bold, mod­ern sig­na­ture that tells new clients instant­ly: this is a plat­form built for break­throughs, not just anoth­er cof­fee brand.

“Work­ing with ODA unlocked a lev­el of clar­i­ty and ambi­tion we didn’t know we were miss­ing. They helped us reframe our entire offer and opened up oppor­tu­ni­ties we sim­ply couldn’t see before.”

James Rawlinson, Marketing Director, CostaX

CRAFT x TECH

We shaped a brand world where cof­fee craft meets intel­li­gent tech­nol­o­gy. Think human skill and sen­so­ry qual­i­ty, fused with pre­ci­sion, automa­tion and data insight. Nat­u­ral­ness and warmth in the prod­uct. Sharp­ness and intel­li­gence in the sys­tem. The result is a future-lean­ing iden­ti­ty that still feels unmis­tak­ably Cos­ta. A new space where hand­craft­ed cof­fee and smart ser­vice coex­ist… and scale.

EMBRACE YOUR INNER PIONEER

We gave Cos­taX a bold and coura­geous atti­tude that moved from the lan­guage of beans and machines, to the world of tech, ser­vice and performance.

This wasn’t about sell­ing equip­ment. It was about deliv­er­ing reli­able, intel­li­gent cof­fee expe­ri­ences at scale. It posi­tioned Cos­taX as a tech-fuelled ser­vice brand

NAM­ING FOR SCALE

We renamed the inter­nal data plat­form Cos­taX Cloud, turn­ing hid­den insight into a cus­­tomer-fac­ing asset that could sur­face new sales oppor­tu­ni­ties. From there, we built a smart ecosys­tem of prod­uct brands with tech­nol­o­gy at the cen­tre, and cre­at­ed a sim­ple, scal­able nam­ing sys­tem for every prod­uct and mod­el. A shift from one machine and a file of data, to a con­nect­ed set of prod­uct brands and a ser­vice plat­form pow­ered by intelligence.

FROM PROD­UCT TO PROPOSITION

We built dis­tinct propo­si­tions for each prod­uct, ground­ed in real cus­tomer needs and clear audi­ence insight. The mes­sag­ing stayed true to the Cos­taX brand, but flexed to speak direct­ly to each cat­e­go­ry and seg­ment in lan­guage that mat­tered to them.

Then we dialled up or down the Cos­taX brand assets to shape dif­fer­ent worlds and behav­iours. Each prod­uct felt part of the ecosys­tem, yet stood con­fi­dent­ly on its own as a lifestyle choice, not just a machine.

STEP INTO A WORLD OF POTENTIAL

We went beyond brief, design­ing and pro­duc­ing a set of robust sales tools, inspi­ra­tional films, envi­ron­ments and acti­va­tions for their glob­al teams to launch Cos­taX to the world.

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