In a world of big time coffee competition, how does a decades old brand with a smaller footprint and smaller budgets grab attention? Over the years Peet’s coffee lost its mojo. We had to get back on coffee lovers’ radar.

Through talking to coffee lovers, we learned that loyalty programs were becoming increasingly less attractive, locking people in for long periods of time with no reward in sight. We also discovered that coffee lovers tend to be promiscuous – bouncing around from coffee shop to coffee shop to find the perfect cup.

We set out to increase searches for Peet’s coffee, store visits and app downloads amongst those who were collecting points with our competition.

On the coffee Super Bowl a.k.a National Coffee Day, we captured attention by doing something no coffee brand has done before — we rewarded people for their disloyalty.

We introduced the Peet’s ‘Disloyalty Program,’ a digital experience that allowed customers to exchange rewards points from rival coffee brands (think Starbucks and Dunkin’) at Peet’s coffee bars across America.

Customers visited our website, uploaded a screenshot of their rewards points and we converted points to a free Peet’s beverage.

Loyalty programs were becoming increasingly frustrating, taking longer to collect points that would amount to any reward.

Starbucks had launched a revamped rewards program and sentiment online was primarily negative, focused on the fact that it would cost twice as many of the program’s reward points, called stars, to redeem a free beverage. Dunkin’ also made changes to their rewards program resulting in customer backlash.

We saw an opportunity to target people’s dissatisfaction with rewards programs.

Peet’s was targeting millennial coffee enthusiasts. They weren’t your average coffee drinker who liked the taste of and consumed the beverage for energy. They were obsessed with everything- the smell, taste, origin and blend. For 78% of this group, coffee was the best part of their day.

In doing ethnographic research with our target, we learned that coffee enthusiasts tend to be promiscuous, jumping around from brand to brand - loyalty was low.

We launched The Disloyalty Program on National Coffee Day. The execution came to life in three ways:

1) Launch with film that speaks to other rewards programs and invites coffee lovers to participate.

We had a Peet’s barista tossing cups with blurred out logos from other competitors, speaking about why it pays to be disloyal. This ran across owned channels and paid social

2) Use influencers to encourage participation

We used the reach and personality of popular TikTok influencers like @corporatenatalie to compel people to participate

3)The microsite and app instructed people how to participate

Clear instructions across these owned channels helped people understand how they could easily swap existing rewards points for a free Peet’s coffee.

The campaign only ran on National Coffee Day.

This campaign drove a 9% uptick in store traffic, the most searches for Peet’s EVER, 15k app downloads and 1.5B earned impressions.

Starbucks, Better Buzz and Dunkin customers were the most disloyal, with 7,426 redemptions across the three programs.

We successfully turned heads away from our biggest competitors and directed them towards Peets.