Your client's ad
on coffee cups
Messages on takeout containers and sleeves reach an affluent consumer
By Diego Vasquez
Nov 7, 2011
Anyone who can afford to drop $3 or more on a cup of coffee has got some disposable income, which makes the customers at coffee shops a desirable target for out-of-home advertisers.
It's an upscale crowd, with 30 percent of coffee shop customers making $100,000 or more per year. There are a number of creative advertising options for these venues, too.
Ads on takeout coffee containers or the sleeves wrapped around them to protect fingers from the heat of the coffee are particularly popular.
Coffee drinkers spend between 37 and 40 minutes with each cup, which they often consume while sitting at their computers at work. That makes them ideal targets for an online call-to-action advertised on the cup.
To find out how to get your client in coffee shops and on coffee cups/sleeves, read on.
This is one in a Media Life series on buying out-of-home venues. They appear weekly.
Fast Facts
What
Advertising at coffee shops.
Who
Any out-of-home or guerrilla agency can set up campaigns on coffee cups/sleeves and in cafes. There are also printing companies that specialize in cups and sleeves.
How it works
The most cost-effective way to reach coffee drinkers is on the sleeves that wrap around the cup.
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They are a more efficient alternative to ads on the actual cups because they use less material and are thus cheaper to produce. They're also ubiquitous. A sleeve goes around almost every cup of coffee that's sold these days.
Basic sleeves are printed in full color and feature an advertiser's message and logo, but there are more creative ways to used coffee sleeves in a campaign.
The camera company Olympus recently ran a campaign in which the sleeve had a portion cut out of it. A drawing on the sleeve mimicked the screen on a digital camera, and inside the cutout was a picture of an animal. When the sleeve was moved to the right, a different animal appeared underneath the sleeve, much like clicking to the next photo on a digital camera.
Sampling is also an option on coffee sleeves. The sugar substitute Splenda recently attached packets of its product to sleeves so coffee drinkers could try it.
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There are also some high-tech coffee sleeve options. They can be heat activated, so that an image appears when the sleeve warms up and disappears when it cools down.
Sleeves can also include a sound chip that plays audio clips, such as an advertiser's jingle, or be printed with a QR code. Scratch-off sleeves can be used for contests and sweepstakes.
These coffee cup sleeves can also be distributed in other locations that sell coffee, such as convenience stores, airports, hospitals, office building cafes and college campuses.
Advertisers can target coffee drinkers in the actual cafes as well with standard signage or ads on napkins. Brands can also sponsor free coffee events at a shop, with street teams passing out free coffee while pitching their product.
Also, nearly 1,000 coffee shops offer digital advertising on screens behind the counter.
Markets
Coffee campaigns can be executed in any market.
Numbers
There are 20,000 U.S. coffee stores and combined they generate $10 billion in annual revenue, according to the industry analysis firm Hoover's.
Americans consume 400 million cups of coffee per day, which works out to 146 billion cups of coffee each year.
How it is measured
Advertisers can track how many coffee cups and sleeves are distributed, as well as how many transactions there are in each cafe. Coffee marketers can also keep track of other elements such as QR codes scanned or web sites visited.
What product categories work well
Recent or current coffee advertisers include TV networks, travel, telecommunications, web sites, fashion, education and auto.
Demographics
Among adults who have visited a coffee shop in the past 30 days, 53 percent were female and 47 percent male, according to Scarborough Research.
Thirty-four percent were between ages 18-34, with 63 percent between 18-49 and 60 percent between 25-54.
Also, 63 percent have an annual household income of $50,000 or more, with 46 percent at $75,000 or more and 30 percent at $100,000 or more.
Making the buy
Lead time is typically three to four weeks, including production.
Coffee sleeve pricing varies depending on the number of items printed but typically ranges between 8 and 15 cents per sleeve. In-store coffee shop events cost up to an additional $1,500.
Who’s already been on coffee cups
Recent brands that have advertised on coffee cups or in cafes include CBS, Visa, AT&T, Olympus, Verizon, Best Buy, Fox, Southwest Airlines, State Farm and General Motors.
What they’re saying
"The demographic typically is going to be your core 25-54 audience. It's going to be the business professional worker, typically, someone with high income--when you're spending between $3 and $5 for a cup of coffee, you've got some coins in your pocket." – Charlie Di Toro, president at Brite Media Group
Web site info
Brite Media Group
http://britemg.com
GoGorilla Media
http://gogorillaadvertising.com
Mangia Media
http://www.mangiamedia.com
Encompass Media
http://www.encompassmediagroup.com
PromoMedia Concepts
http://promocup.com
EMC Outdoor
http://www.emcoutdoor.com/pizza_box_ads.htm
Targetcast Networks
http://www.targetcastnetworks.com
CupAd
http://www.cupadllc.com
RMG Networks
http://www.rmgnetworks.com
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