BOSS Coffee
Launching Suntory’s Canned Coffee Line in the U.S.
Solution
As Millennials continue to value convenience, food and beverage companies have reacted by introducing new ready-to-drink product offerings to the marketplace. Suntory International’s BOSS canned coffee products have long been a leader in Japan—but the company needed to pivot the brand to resonate with new consumers in its U.S. launch.
Suntory tasked Firstborn to evolve its brand identity for the U.S. market and build a social campaign that would raise brand recognition, generate excitement, and ultimately drive consumers to purchase.
We first armed BOSS with an updated brand identity that would resonate with their new audience. BOSS Coffee is one of the first Flash Brewed coffee brands to hit American shelves, so we wanted to embrace our difference and use it to stand out among the rest. The new “We’re Brewed Different” positioning introduces consumers to this differentiated brewing process.
We also developed brand positioning, pillars, and tone of voice guidelines to inform how the brand engages with consumers across every channel. In addition, we delivered a new visual identity system that included updated typography and color palettes, as well as custom lifestyle and product photography.
We want to meet our new audience where they are, so we chose Instagram as our campaign platform, ensuring we could deliver maximum organic reach with little paid-media investment for our client. By choosing Instagram, we also empowered the brand to sell directly to consumers through the platform in the future.
Results
We developed a new brand identity and launch strategy that introduces Boss Coffee to the U.S. market. We developed over four months of Instagram content for standard and sponsored posts that reflected a mix of typographic, product-centric, portrait, and lifestyle imagery. We also equipped the team with a creative toolkit so they can continue to grow and engage with their audience in the future.
