COSTA COFFEE
GLOBAL BRAND REPOSITIONING

I directed Costa Coffee’s repositioning to elevate its quality perception across every media channel and its massive physical footprint of over 4,000 stores and 14,000 Express machines.

Costa was fighting a war on two fronts: Starbucks and Caffè Nero on quality, and McDonald’s McCafé on convenience. Costa had physical ubiquity but lacked mental availability when consumers thought of premium, handcrafted coffee.

The new campaign launched with a witty, confident tone and a beautifully shot visual world focused on craft, skill, and provenance, contrasting sharply with how our competitors served their coffee.

The impact was massive. Within two years, global sales rose 9% to $1.8 billion, yielding $215M in operating profit. This fueled a 32% retail expansion and a 170% explosion in Express machines around the world. Crucially, this campaign paved the way for the brand’s $5.1 billion acquisition by
Coca-Cola.

YouGov’s BrandIndex showed Costa significantly outperformed its competitors on all fronts:

Quality: Costa scored 20.6 decisively winning on quality vs. Caffè Nero on 15.5 and Starbucks on just 9.8.

Impression: Costa scored 23.2 winning over consumers at an emotional level vs. Starbucks with a low 3.0 and perceived as overly corporate.

Satisfaction: Costa more than doubled Starbucks' score, proving Costa’s coffee lived up to the campaign’s promise.