Finnish Paulig is over 140-years old and a billion-dollar company known for its range of quality coffees, available in the Finnish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and Russian markets.

Our task was to create a new marketing concept for Paulig’s product line, City Coffees. City Coffee-campaign was aimed at young urban Finns. Each City Coffee variant also introduces a preparation method, or a way to enjoy the coffee, typical for the city and inspired by that city’s lifestyle and heritage.

Coffee is a highly competed category in Finland and the Finns have the highest per capita consumption in the world. It’s almost impossible to increase consumption. Our task was to create a marketing concept that was compelling enough to win market share and drive premium category growth in one of the toughest business categories in Finland.

Our budget for the whole campaign was 165 614 € euros. Including planning, production and execution.

We created a hyper minimalistic marketing concept. Our idea was to capture the essence of the city in an interesting yet relevant way and take the target group on a coffee tour around the world, evoking the spirit of iconic cities such as Havana, Paris etc.

The advertising itself was created around the idea of a visual pun that functioned almost like a riddle, inviting the consumer to interact with the marketing by identifying the visual element of the city in question.

This solution was particularly relevant to the target audience, who have often visited the cities in question and can forge a sense of connection with both the city and the Paulig brand from the advertising. Coffee, as any product, is not only functional but also has an emotional level that can be used to evoke memories and feelings.

Cities are extremely used visuals in the field of coffee. We wanted to picture the classic urban icons in a new, distinctive way and ended up with a really minimalistic execution which captured the essence of each city.

The design philosophy was to use only the essential – coffee cups – to bring the cities to life. Also, everything had to be realistic, something that could happen in the real world to make the visuals authentic. Just by looking at the cups from certain angle you would see the city come to life in the shape of the coffee cup.

For example, the visual of Paris was a cup handle shaped like the Arc de Triomphe, Sydney was portrayed by an upside-down coffee cup and coffee cups became Havana’s vintage car headlights.

Campaign was fully integrated from digital media to billboards and print ads to give it wide coverage.

The results of the campaign exceeded targets and expectations. Sales of the City Coffees product line grew 153 pp when comparing sales before the campaign. The sales objective was exceeded by 115 pp.

The campaign also effectively added value to the brand and drove brand recognition. Aided awareness grew 17% in the entire population (Finns aged between 15-74), not just in the target audience.

Consumer consideration for the City Coffees product line also grew significantly. The growth in consideration was 15% in the same tracking period as the sales growth. In addition, City Coffees were seen as being 11% more inspiring as a brand than before the campaign.

The campaign also gained international PR coverage and earned media. It was covered in several international design medias such as Bored Panda and Drum. Paulig’s product was featured in places where typically a non-artisanal coffee brand is a rare sight.