Gloria Jean’s Coffees is all about coffee. It positions itself as a coffee specialist passionately committed to creating the ultimate coffee experience from bean to cup. This involves not only providing its ‘guests’ with a quality cup of coffee, but with a welcoming, warm coffee house environment, whether they are on the go or are looking for somewhere to stop and take some time out.

Gloria Jean’s Coffees, named as one of the top 30 fastest growing franchises in Australia by BRW, has 489 coffee houses across the country, serving five million coffees each month. Since 2004, the company has been established worldwide with 915 stores across 35 countries, and it is still Australian-owned.

Despite its prevalence across Australia, Gloria Jean’s has achieved its brand recognition with limited advertising – it ran its last campaign in 2007. The challenge for this campaign was to reinforce the position of Gloria Jean’s Coffees as Australia’s top provider of quality speciality coffee.

Client: Gloria Jean’s Coffees
Agency: 303

Objectives

The brief was to broaden the understanding of the product offering to an audience that may not have previously considered the brand, reinforce the positioning of Gloria Jean’s Coffees among its already loyal following, maintain growth in a competitive coffee environment and set up a distinct positioning.

A key objective was to also increase purchase frequency by highlighting other occasions during the day when customers could take time out or recharge with a coffee by emphasising ‘on-the-go purchases’. The challenge was to reinforce the company’s image – building on the understanding that enjoying a quality coffee was an opportunity to take a break in a busy world.

Strategy

There were two key target audiences for the campaign, including existing guests (encouraging them to extend their purchasing habits) and potential guests (building an emotional connection to show that ‘Gloria Jean’s Coffees is my kind of coffee place’). Jon McKie, managing director of 303 Sydney and the strategic planner on the campaign, indicates that he wanted to retain loyalty with existing guests by demonstrating they couldn’t get the same emotional connection that they get at Gloria Jean’s Coffees anywhere else.

“We wanted to generate a ‘wow’ factor – but in the sense that ‘Wow, Gloria Jean’s Coffees is unexpected. I didn’t realise their coffee was this good.’ Plus, we wanted to attract new guests, especially a younger audience, by promoting a contemporary brand image. This group leads a particularly hectic life and they need to know that Gloria Jean’s Coffees delivers the product and the quality anytime. How do you now encourage hurried, harried customers, in major metro areas, to change their habits and move to Gloria Jean’s Coffees?,” asks McKie.

Gloria Jean’s Coffees national marketing manager Nicole Saleh also wanted to amplify the in-store experience, bringing a thoughtful playfulness to life and encouraging people to bring Gloria Jean’s Coffees into their daily routine.


“[It’s] to show that we’re a good company, doing good things as well as providing good product,” says Saleh.

Creative director Julian Watt from 303 and his team developed the strategy ‘Live life one sip at a time’.

“The combination of product, place and people makes this a really great offering, and our campaign invites people to enjoy life a little more. This creative concept had to flow across everything – from counter cards to the TVC to posters to the website. Have a sip while you’re on the go and who knows what will happen next,” explains Watt.

Execution

The rationale for the execution, titled ‘Boy Meets Girl’, was to establish the campaign idea, ‘Live life one sip at a time’, where two people meet over coffee, but their awkward shyness doesn’t allow them to connect until after many coffees, thus demonstrating the benefit of visiting Gloria Jean’s Coffees, which is of course the coffee, the expert process and roasting, the training of baristas and the taste, all delivered quickly and efficiently. Originally created as a 45-second story, the TVC was cut into 30-seconders and cut-down 15-seconders.

The website was revamped to demonstrate how the company creates an emotional connection with guests, maintaining the feeling of the strategy. The site design aimed to be fun, light, entertaining, more informative and interactive than the previous site, with information on everything from how to own a franchise to finding employment.

303’s head of digital Nic Chamberlain says, “We wanted to capture the spirit of the Gloria Jean’s Coffees brand, the sense of fun, escaping from the norm, the feeling of relaxation, while at the same time giving people more information and the chance to interact with the brand by signing up to the club.”

Results

The results of the campaign were positive from the start. According to Saleh, Gloria Jean’s Coffees reaped rewards almost immediately – within the first two weeks of the campaign being on TV, sales increased 6.22% over the same time the previous year and transactions increased 6.6%.

“This means that the number of actual sales increased, as did the amount of each transaction. It was clear that the new positioning changed our guests’ view of us plus it has attracted new guests,” says Saleh.

“And something else happened – people starting emailing us about how they felt about the campaign, [which] had never happened before. We [have] never received emails from guests – now it’s about three per day and they’re all positive.”

Visits to the website increased as well – month-on-month traffic grew 9%, with daily traffic topping 2600 unique visitors as the TV campaign launched.

“There’s a clear steady increase in site traffic, and what’s particularly pleasing is the average site visit is over two and a half minutes, so we know people are browsing the site’s content,” explains Chamberlain.