Coffee culture bottlenecks in Lithuania
Numbers | |
40 | in-depth interviews |
12 | company cultures observed |
50 | stores visited |
It is so strange that people drink way less instant coffee here than in neighbouring countries. What's the deal?
That is how we were introduced into a problem right away. It seemed strange to people from a well-known conglomerate seeing the obvious reluctance from customers to buy soluble coffee on everyday occasions. Neither of expensive marketing campaigns gave a long-lasting effect.
After spending some time on coffee contexts and its way into the country, we decided to explore four routines: morning coffee at home, coffee in office, coffee shop habitat, buying coffee at grocery stores. Well-documented research revealed unseen worlds of people's decision making.
Looking through data patterns it was obvious that majority of people actually did not understand what coffee beans and why they were using. They only thing they actually perceived was if it is more sour or less sour. That was the basis on which a decision to create the story on the origin of coffee was made.
People care about the story they can tell, not the taste they can distinguish. Knowledge to share was more alluring to them.
The insight was complimented by another finding. Coffee drinkers identified instant coffee as a drink (like cappuccino or frappe). They had no idea about the process of the making. Everybody loudly or silently attached a word 'artificial' to a word 'instant'.
Maps of meaning structured the logic behind coffee culture. It was obvious, in order to increase usage the company had to solve two bottlenecks. The answers were education and authenticity of the stories behind.
The notion of coffee from real beans had to be introduced through education, not advertising. And it had to be supported by interesting stories to be told.
Soluble coffee has a great potential, because regular coffee, being a legally and publicly allowed drug, lacks cleanness and simplicity that instant coffee offers.