Can Illy Convert Coffee Lovers?

In the November 8 edition of Advertising Age, I was drawn to the CMO Strategy article written by Natalie Zmuda featuring Beverly Stotz who is the VP of Marketing at Illy Caffe North America.  Being a bit of a coffee snob, I was immediately drawn to the article.  It was full of cool information such as who Illy is targeting (professionals, highly educated, mid 30s to late 50s); interesting ways Illy is generating trial without a huge paid media budget; walking customers up the value curve from mass market brands like Folgers to more premium brands like Illy; and the trend toward single-serve systems among others.

Given my affection for coffee and also curious to see how other coffee drinkers view Illy, I did some “gutchecking” on some of the concepts reported on in the article.  In terms of targeting, I used GutCheck’s recruitment engine to find individuals 35-59 with a bachelors degree, and who have full-time employment.  I also inserted some custom questions which screened out individuals who don’t drink coffee several times per week, and I also used custom questions to identify which brand of coffee the respondent preferred.  As is typically the case, it only took a couple of minutes to find the respondents.  My respondents were a mix of male and female.  Half of them used mass products like Folgers or Maxwell House, and the other half used a premium brand, primarily Starbuck’s.

My findings from this exercise might be of interest to Beverly and her team.  Half of the respondents had tried Illy coffee, and they preferred it over their current brands which included Starbucks.  One individual who regularly drinks Starbucks, tried Illy last week and it seems to have displaced Starbucks as his favored coffee.  Price mattered to those who drink the mass products.  However, they are willing to move up the price curve, but only seemed to be willing to meet Illy half way between the mass product price and where Illy is.  All of the respondents like the single-serve products because of the huge convenience, variety of flavors, and the inability to distinguish between it and a fresh-brewed cup.  Finally, the kind of trial Beverly is focused on should do well with coffee drinkers.  All respondents were highly interested in trying new brands, so it seems that none were incredibly loyal to their existing brand.

I hope Beverly and her team are successful in bringing Illy to coffee lovers everywhere.  I know I am a big fan.

If you have some questions about your target market, let us know.  We’d be happy to let you gutcheck it .

One Response

1. Tweets that mention Illy Converts Coffee Lovers | GutCheck -- Topsy.com says:

   November 15, 2010 at 7:16 am

   [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Emily Bellin, GutCheckIt. GutCheckIt said: Got your coffee & morning web reading? Is it @illyUSA coffee? Have you tried Illy? You might convert. New Post: http://bit.ly/illyCoffee [...]

   Reply