up
of
down

Caribou Coffee: Make The Cup Case Study

Caribou Coffee Make The Cup

Solution

Colle+McVoy realized that Caribou’s broadest reaching media vehicle was its cups. Millions of cups each year serve as walking billboards or “owned” media. With the brand relaunch, we created a series of cups featuring handwritten “Bouisms” highlighting things worth staying awake for. Building on that momentum, we created MakeTheCup.com, which allowed consumers to tell us what they stay awake for, and possibly land on the next generation of Caribou cups. The consumer promotion spiked site traffic by 26 percent, and 150 of the best submissions made it to millions of new Caribou cups.

Challenge

Despite being the second-largest premium coffeehouse in the world, Caribou Coffee is dwarfed by Starbucks when it comes to ad spending. With such a large spending gap, we needed to find a unique promotion to engage customers in our “Life is short. Stay awake for it.” campaign.

Caribou Coffee: Cup Design

Since Caribou is significantly outspent by its competitors, Colle+McVoy paid special attention to the design of its number one touchpoint, the cup. We extended Caribou Coffee’s brand tagline "Life is short. Stay awake for it." to their cups, turning them into mobile messaging platforms that captured inspiring messages that are lovingly called "Bouisms." Each size featured different Bouisms. We have even created customized cups for their Minnesota Twins and Minnesota Vikings sponshorships.

View Case Study »