‘Shake ya body, Shakissimo your gizmo?’ Nescafe launches first ever chilled dairy iced coffee in EU
Shakissimo (pictured in Latte Espresso, Latte Macchiato and Latte Cappuccino flavors) will be sold from this summer in Switzerland, Spain, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and France. It comes in a specially designed cup that creates a creamy foam when shaken.
A Nestle spokesperson told BeverageDaily.com this morning: “Shakissimo is Nescafe’s first chilled dairy iced coffee in Europe. Some other powdered coffees intended to be made into iced coffees are available in Europe – for example, Nescafe Frappe in Greece. But this is the first fresh product.”
Introducing its broader Nescafe REDVolution today, which has a significant focus on connecting with younger consumers, the brand said it marked the first time in its 75-year history that every Nescafé product worldwide will share the same visual identity and the slogan: ‘It all starts with a Nescafé.’ (You can see one new image synonymous with the campaign on the left).
'The coffee market is getting younger' - Nescafe
“The coffee market is getting younger. Insights from our own research conducted in 28+ markets since 2009 show that coffee starts among young people 13-19 years old, replacing dairy beverage consumption with 0.4 average consumption occasions per day,” the spokesperson said.
“Coffee shops are one of the main entry points into coffee for today’s youth – a shift from the past,” they added. “This campaign recognizes that and will help us win in this and other segments of the market.”
Nescafe is consolidating several key visual elements as part of a ‘brand personality’ – something that’s apparently slightly schizoid, since it says it will express it differently across all its territories.
The spokesman told us that for the first time the brand is taking a truly integrated global approach to the “big idea, brand line, visual identity, packaging design, communication and digital, social media and mobile roadmap”.
Budget Nescafe Red Cup machine launch in Thailand
New packaging will be rolled-out across 180 countries covering 90% of sales by the end of 2014, they added, while a Nescafe Red Cup machine launching in Thailand will take the brand into the lucrative machine-plus-pod space currently colonized by its more upmarket stablemate Nespresso.
“Launching in Thailand this month it is priced at the lowest possible entry price for systems coffee,” the spokesperson said.
Another unusual innovation is the Nescafe Alarm Cap – a jar with an integrated alarm clock that switches off when you twist the cap (a global launch rolled-out in Mexico last month) and Nescafe WakeUp, a social media alarm clock app launched globally this January.
There is also a significant focus on digital. Nescafe now has 25m Facebook fans compared to 2m two years ago, and the spokesperson said the brand has just launched a global platform to share branded content and mobilizing all its global and local creative resources.
Patrice Bula, Nestle’s global head of marketing described Nescafe, the firm’s largest brand with circa. $11.12bn sales, as “one of the cornerstones of our company”.
FMCG expert salutes Nescafe's shot at branding 'holy grail'
Claire Nuttall, a FMCG expert and co-founder London-based Thrive Unlimited, a consultancy that 'creates brand and business value', gave BeverageDaily.com her thoughts on the Nescafe move.
Did Nuttall think there was a risk that, given the global trend towards localization (certainly in soft drinks), Nescafe could alienate a younger audience through greater homogeneity?
"It's fine for the product experience to move apart globally (centrifugal force, if you will), but if this happens you need another element of the product architecture to provide a balancing (centripetal) force. In this case, that's the brand. Otherwise you end up with a totally atomized product with no overarching common characteristics on a global level, and brand value is lost," Nuttall (pictured) said.
Nuttall added that she thought Nescafe was doing the "logical thing" by iterating the product experience to each market, for instance, with the low-cost machine solution in Thailand.
"Look at the success of Coke's Share With Friends campaign," she said. "The holy grail with global brands is producing something which resonates in every geography. This is a shot at that."
