Coffee Mate sits within Nestlé’s coffee and beverage division. However, it is the brand’s job to understand why Coffee Mate matters to the consumer. The company deeply understands that Coffee Mate can transform a daily coffee routine into a moment of enjoyment. Many people might think that routine could be mundane. Also, in this social world, consumers use Coffee Mate as self-expression. Therefore, the Coffee Mate brand strategy focuses on cultural relevance.
” My job is to help make sure that our brand is culturally relevant,” said a Nestlé marketing executive. “If you follow the Coffee Mate example, what we really showcased at the House of Nestlé was how Coffee Mate is so committed to elevating these daily rituals with flavors and experiences that reflect who consumers are.”
Harry Potter Partnership Brings Butterbeer to Coffee
One of the big collaborations was with Harry Potter. Coffee Mate created a Butterbeer flavor. The brand also developed flavored cream enhancers and cold foam that everyone got to taste. Recently, in New York City, a Coffee Mate and Harry Potter Butterbeer cafe came alive. This offered an immersive experience for consumers. It was done in partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery Global Consumer Products. The Coffee Mate brand strategy thus extends beyond product into experiential marketing.
“We have to drive and lead the categories that our brands participate in,” the executive said. “The way that we do that is by continuing to grow our unique relevance and make sure that we’re winning and delighting the consumers in the moments where they most need our brands.”
Insights Engine Drives Flavor Development
The company has a pretty solid insights engine. It uses this engine to go deep on the entire consumer journey. The brand maps the consumer journey extensively. It knows what primary Coffee Mate consumers are consuming in terms of media. It also knows how bold they want to go with their flavor expressions. When thinking about delivering magic to the cup every moment, Harry Potter just felt like a very natural fit. The company then does a series of solid testing to ensure relevance and delivery. The Coffee Mate brand strategy prioritizes consumer validation.
“We’ve built a really strong what we call foresight muscle and our social intelligence, our social listening muscle,” the executive said. “I’m very proud of the work that we’ve done to make that very real-time and actionable for us. We also have accelerated the rate of our consumer validation work. There are rapid consumer validation tools that we use now versus our historic, more time-consuming methods. So we get to the answer faster, but we don’t sacrifice the consumer experience and the testing.”
Minor’s Kitchen Launch Extends Nestlé’s Reach
The executive was deeply involved with developing Minor’s Kitchen. Launching a new brand for a new category for Nestlé was a significant undertaking. The company started seeing statistics like 86% of meals consumed in the U.S. are eaten at home. With demands on consumers today, people are looking for a guaranteed culinary experience. They also have an expansion of their flavor palates. Nestlé looked at its 75-year-old Minor’s brand, which has been cultivated with chefs across the years. It was the perfect opportunity to bring this into people’s pantries.
“Figuring out what the right sauces were to begin with, what the right format was for us to bring, it was a lot of fun to build that organically,” the executive said. “A lot of the work and innovation that we do is under existing brands, so this was a lot of fun. It also leverages the immense scale that we believe we have by being so prominent in both in-home and out-of-home. Now, we’re able to offer something to consumers that has been vetted by chefs.”
Digital-First Approach and Retail Partnerships
The company has expanded its digital and social investment greatly over the last few years. It tends to be digital-first in its way of thinking. Nestlé has done a good job of ensuring immersive experiences. The company also knows that influence is not a one-way portal anymore. It gets its hands in the products of its fans and hopes that fans can help spread the news. Social plays a big role in how the company launches while it also does some traditional awareness-driving work.
The company also has strong partnerships with its retailers. Some retailers are really strong opportunities to drive awareness. Shopper marketing and retail digital media allow full-funnel activations with Amazon and Walmart. Their toolkit is certainly expanding. That would not have been in the toolkit necessarily five years ago. The Coffee Mate brand strategy embraces this evolving retail landscape.
AI Capabilities Enhance Marketing Efficiency
Nestlé has a proprietary consumer segmentation tool. It places consumers in unique segments. The company can then understand how to translate their needs for specific need-state moments. Nestlé has used AI in that tool so marketers can have conversations with an agent to better know that consumer. That will never replace talking to the core consumer. However, it helps shape thinking faster, utilizing AI within this framework.
The company also uses AI for concept building. It has an innovation tool that helps get to rapid concepts. What would have taken four weeks before on concept ideation has been taken down to days and, in some cases, hours. The company can get an inspired concept or two to pull through. Nestlé is really utilizing AI in a few of these spaces as an enabler. The people working on the business can go get to the higher-order work faster and be deeper on it. The Coffee Mate brand strategy thus leverages AI for speed without sacrificing quality.