What Specialty Coffee is Getting Wrong About Marketing
While the title of this article sounds like I'm about ready to pick a fight, let me explain. I'll share a story about serving coffee to those who are not coffee nerds.
Yeah, I said coffee nerds.
We … yes, "we," get all nerded out about coffee. Talking about how coffee is processed, the varietals, cupping, roast profiles, flavor notes, and so on really is a lot of fun. Like, A LOT. However, if our customer is the very tiny slice of coffee drinkers out there who actually nerd out about this, then we might as well be speaking an unintelligible language.
I understand that part of our role is education. Agreed.
Last month, as I've written about here, I served coffee to mountain bikers at a 24-hour race outside of Bend, Oregon. I made more pourovers than I can count and had many amazing conversations with people as they waited for me to brew their coffee. Here's what I discovered. None of them were coffee nerds, except maybe a couple. Meaning, they didn't care much about the origins of the three coffees I was serving or about the flavor notes. When choosing, many simply said, "you pick."
However, they were coffee drinkers. In fact, I know what kind. The kind who drink dark roasts or the traditional mass-produced coffee brands that line the shelves of most grocery store chains. In fact, I lost track of how many times someone not only asked, "Do you have creamer?" but also asked, "Is it okay if I use some?"
They knew enough about the nerdy world of specialty coffee that I guess one must drink light roasts only and drink it black, but they also knew that it was a cardinal sin to add anything resembling milk to their coffee. I kid you not; people looked guilty asking if they could add milk and/or sweetener of some kind to their coffee. I did have cow's milk, almond milk, oat milk, and agave syrup.
What have we done?
I think of marketing coffee like I think of the auto industry. We've been watching car commercials and seeing car ads our whole lives. If they marketed like specialty coffee, each commercial would feature some dude, probably in a black turtleneck, geeking about what the metal used to make the car body and the fabrication process. Not only that, but they'd weave a long story about where the metal was mined from, what elevation it was mined from, how that minerals were processed, and so on. Oh, and we'd surely tell the story of the individual miners in our marketing.
Instead, what do we see in car ads or commercials? They invite us into a story … an experience … or a lifestyle. Ads and commercials focus on the consumer and the experience they will have driving this new Ford F150. They'll surely talk about performance. Tucked into it all is messaging that hits us deeply about our aspirational identities and why we need this luxury sedan from BMW.
Instead, coffee wants to talk about the elevation from which the coffee was grown and how it was processed.
Don't get me wrong. This is valuable and very important … to me. I even care about what happens at origin, the farmers, and equity. However, the average coffee consumer (most in the U.S. still drink cheap dark-roasted mass-produced coffees) only cares about the experience and whether it "works."
Obviously, one of the hallmarks of the third-wave coffee experience is just that … the experience, but I'm afraid we've so nerded out on how the metal in the car was mined, processed, and fabricated that we lose sight that people most often want coffee to pick them up … especially during a 24-hour mountain bike race.
I am mindful to communicate in a way that makes coffee approachable. More than that, people wouldn't be intimidated by asking if adding milk to their coffee is acceptable. Even more so, they often brew coffee in a $20 Mr. Coffee they pick up at Walmart or Amazon or buy a cup of coffee from the batch brewer at a gas station. If this is you ... welcome. I'm glad you found us.
Photos: Fabiola Christian