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Caribou debuts premium drinks, new ad campaign

MINNEAPOLIS With the launch of the chain’s first TV commercial, Caribou Coffee is debuting a line of mochas and hot chocolate beverages made with real chocolate, and it’s pulling the strings on a large, integrated marketing campaign that some say is aimed directly at segment leader Starbucks Coffee.

“Hang on to your hat,” said Alfredo Martel, the coffeehouse chain’s senior vice president of marketing. “We’ll be offering our guests lots of innovation and value over the next 18 months.”

Parent company Caribou Coffee Co., which is based in Minneapolis, will begin a six-week cable TV buy this weekend for its first-ever commercial, “Get Real: Chocolate.” The spot will air in eight marketing areas, and other markets will promote the new drinks through radio commercials, national and local newspaper ads, and social media.

The campaign is centered around new mochas, chocolate lattes, hot chocolates and other specialty beverages that the chain introduced Thursday.

The humorous TV commercial, which some marketing publications have interpreted as a jab at powerhouse Starbucks Coffee, was designed to get customers thinking about the value of authenticity, Martel said.

The spot features two insufferable, phony yuppies — played by marionette puppets — sitting on a shopping mall bench and drinking coffee. When a real person sits next to them with Caribou’s new hot chocolate, made with real Guittard chocolate and not a flavored syrup, they get jealous. When the girl puppet asks, “Why don’t we ever get Caribou Coffee?” her beau tells her, “Because we’re not real.”

(Click here to view the commercial.)

The marketing comes as Starbucks is promoting instant coffee, and as both chains have struggled against negative sales trends. Same-store sales for the latest September-ended quarter fell 0.5 percent at Caribou and 1 percent at U.S. Starbucks Coffee locations. Caribou operates or franchises about 500 restaurants, while Starbucks units worldwide total around 16,600.

Caribou launched the commercial not only to promote its new line of premium drinks, Martel said, but also to begin spreading a newly solidified brand message.

“We’ve been doing some important work in terms of clearly defining our brand identity,” Martel said. “We hadn’t been launching any TV earlier because we wanted to make sure we had a handle on our brand identity.”

The new commercial hits on all three elements of that brand profile, Martel said. First, by putting a Caribou mocha in the hands of a real person and not a doll, the commercial highlights the chain’s use of authentic chocolate in the new drinks and shows a dedication to premium ingredients. Also, because the marionettes are snobby, the commercial reinforces a warm, approachable personality for which Caribou strives, Martel said. Finally, he added, the commercial is fun.

Some marketing experts have said the snobby, yuppy puppets could be a thinly veiled dig at a typical Starbucks customer. But Martel said the spot is meant to reflect Caribou’s authenticity rather than disparage any competitor.

“In terms of our investment, this is phase one, our first foray into how we intend to elevate the quality of our products and to differentiate in our messaging and our innovation pipeline,” Martel said. “The word ‘premium’ is thrown around cavalierly right now, but we feel strongly that this product is significantly better. For the next 18 months, [our marketing is] about elevating what authentic is all about. It’s not necessarily targeting any one constituency, and it’s no so much about one particular brand.”

If anything, he added, the humor of the marionettes is supposed to make Caribou stand out rather than poke fun at Starbucks.

“Clearly in today’s viewership patterns, you have to have a clearly entertaining story so that viewers lock into your message,” Martel said. “You have to have creative that is disruptive so you get eyeballs on your message. Thirty seconds of cascades of chocolate would have been fun for me, but the branding story of our authenticity and real quality would have been lost.”

Minneapolis-based Colle + McVoy, which Caribou hired last February, created the commercial. The agency also has produced some animated spots for Caribou’s fall drinks, featuring talking pumpkin Jack and his gourd sidekick Gourdo, that were broadcast on YouTube and the chain’s website.

Caribou also plans to promote the new drinks with a “Happy Monday” online banner ad publicizing a $2 mocha deal, as well as with free samples of Guittard chocolate and buy-one-get-one mochas and hot chocolates in its stores on Nov. 27, or “Black Friday,” which kicks off the holiday shopping season.

Contact Mark Brandau at [email protected].

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