Cafe Coffee Day, one of the leading coffee retail chains in India, one of my leading favorites! For anything, all that I know is starting from catching up with friends to discussing my business plans and new ideas, I go to a CCD.
And I’m not the only one! India goes there!
So, what happened this valentines Day?
Okay, so this 14th February, the Valentines Day, as I decided to catch up for a coffee after a meeting, I parked at the Saket market and hoppped to the cafe coffee day there. Good ambience and as usual nice music with Love in the air, I was looking forward to my cuppa!
So what do we do, when we need to look at the menu to order our coffee?
We, Look at the menu! And what do you do, when the menu is missing? Well, you look here and there and you don’t find it. Then you suddenly see the guy from the store approach you with a small vertical shaped menu (I clicked the pic, but formatted my phone, so lost it), which was like a make your choice Sir, or there is no coffee for you.
Visibly the menu was made especially for the day, with some special couple offer and all the glitter
But I was left asking for my usual cuppa! Finally after staring at the menu which INTERRUPTED me, it made me think:
Is my usual cup of coffee not available for today? Has cafe coffee day really gone overboard with the Valentines fervour? And in this thought process, I was almost left deciding that if this is the menu for the day, well, I dont like it and NO, I DON’T WANT YOUR COFFEE!
Luckily, to break my thought process one of my friends dropped in and before i could ask the coffee guy, he ordered for the plain old usual amazing cold coffee with cream that we order, and the coffee guy got it!
But I did not like the interruption! It was not a well designed interruption!
Let me now share, what was wrong with the interrptive message! Well, the design of the vertical card on which the message was printed. The whole card was designed wrong. the message never got communicated to me in the right way, instead it came negative!
When on the usual menu I have multiple chouce to choose from and keep experimenting with my taste buds, here I am with a card sitting pretty in my hands, with just a single option of a couple offer! Guys, I Didn’t want it!
The whole message was designed poorly and it curbed my zest to experiment each time I visit a cafe coffee day!
What do I say?
Though I do not know how much sales shot up due to this strategy (many of the customers would not have even spoken out, they would just have ordered from the vertical card) but I know of this - cafe coffee day is a brand which has the highest recall amongst all the rest due to their “Soft Purple color” which attracts me from far off, wherever I am.
It’s a purple cow - Seth Godin!
I think, cafe coffee day guys could do much better by understanding what the consumer really looks for and with the standing in the market, well it needs to communicate the message right maintaining the “purple cow” status and just NOT go ahead with the usual Interruptive marketing tactics which products go ahead with. Cafe coffee day for the ususal young Indian, is almost once a day feature, whether at office or driving back or catching up with friends, thus cafe coffee day guys don’t have to PUSH hard, for them the PULL is common with people!
