Branded Coffee Cups- The pivot balancing brand and sustainability

Branded Coffee Cups

Branded Coffee Cups are quickly gaining in relevance in the British Business to Customer Advertising Strategy. The British have always been famous for their caffeine addiction, the tea loving British has been eclipsed by the coffee loving Brits long ago. These days they are so particular about drinking their cup of coffee, that they make it a point to have a cup, no matter how rushed up they may be in life. So branded coffee cups have entered the market to match this growing demand not only disrupting the food and drink industry’s dynamics but also by proving to be a strong but strategic advertisement technique.

UK accepts that café culture is a ritual – and we understand the importance of branded coffee cups further

While about 2 billion cups of coffee are consumed everyday worldwide, according to British Coffee Association statistics, UK itself drinks 55 million cups a day. This café culture is especially growing famous on high street where 80% of clients make at least a weekly visit to coffee shops and 16% make everyday visits.
Mintel had also conducted a research recently which proved that the UK coffee shop market was indeed growing. While the market had a value of £2.5 billion in 2011, its amazing 37% growth potential has increased its value to £3.4 billion by 2016.

Besides, coffee sales have increased by 10.4% from 2015-2016, proving the huge annual boost in coffee demand over the past five years. The next five years too have a promising forecast where it’s predicted that the coffee shop market will steadily grow by an additional 29% to reach a worth of £4.3 billion. According to Mintel’s report, its young consumers that frequent coffee shops the most where 7% of them are aged between 16 to24 years. Trish Caddy, Mintel’s foodservice analyst explains that this is also attributed to the increased number of coffee retailers found on British high streets.

There is also a large number of non-specialist spots offering barista style coffee cropping up throughout UK. These outlets offer takeaway options which have helped them grab a substantial sector of the coffee market.
Competition between quick-service restaurants and high-street specialist coffee chains
According to a recent NPD Group study, the coffee market’s potential is very competitive nowadays as there was a 21% increase in individual coffee servings in branded chains since 2008.

Quick-service restaurants are not far behind, as their coffee sales have grown by more than 63% in the same time span. Even pubs have made alterations to their menus, and have started offering more coffee after realizing its importance in a Brit’s life. This has lead to a consequent 17% increase in pub servings since 2008.
While Quick-service operators concentrate more on coffee for snacks and breakfast, the branded coffee shops focus is on coffee for lunch bites. This has lead to an increase in the visits to well-known British coffee outlets while there were 120 million annual visits in 2008. June 2017 boasts of more than 659 million visits.

High-quality branded coffee cups help create a mark in the market

With coffee playing such an important part in everyone’s everyday life, it’s quite obvious that there is a strong sense of competition between coffee outlets. Branded coffee cups are thus dangerously poised between a point of brand awareness and sustainable endeavours.

If this is characterized wisely, these branded coffee cups can end up as a business’s icon, mini-billboard and even part of their rationale separating them from the many mushrooming coffee shops.

Fierce competition makes it very important for any business to stand out in a crowd, and using branded coffee cups proves very helpful at pushing any brand forward. In fact, branded coffee cups have such a strong impact on the market because consumers generally detest, and are fed up ofl old and traditional marketing methods. They no longer trust ads, or like being targeted through radio and TV ads or the social media.
While billboards and other traditional ads garner an attention span of only 3 to 6 seconds, coffee cups are held for at least 37 minutes. It’s within this time-span that the consumer repeatedly raises and lowers the cup to eye level more than 20 times.

This repeated action of branded coffee cups unconsciously remind the consumer about its brand and slowly attracts and creates customer loyalty using passive marketing techniques. Any logo, image or message imprinted on the coffee cup becomes the main visual portion of a business’s general brand identity. So using well designed branded coffee cups help instil a brand’s trust, recognition and admiration.

As the consumer is constantly exposed to the brand’s logo, image or message printed on high-quality coffee cups, they slowly develop a strong positive reaction towards the brand. Organizations that use branded coffee cups in their establishments and events not only stand out from their competitors, but also appeal to their potential clients by leaving a visual reminder of their businesses on their competitors.

Recyclable and biodegradable branded coffee cusps signify a sustainable business

One of the best ways to market a brand’s eco-friendliness is through recyclable or biodegradable branded coffee cups. According to another Mintel research, 87% of coffee drinkers prefer disposing their coffee cups in recycling bins while 40% coffee drinkers maintained that they didn’t mind paying extra for coffee served in recyclable cups. Looking at the increased importance consumers give towards eco-friendliness, brands that don’t follow sustainability principles only end up spelling their own bad luck. However brands that manage to advocate that they are a green business with minimal environmental effects start prompting customers to have a positive and green outlook to society.

So biodegradable or recyclable branded coffee cups help make not only coffee shops green, but also other businesses. This is because consumers are happy to know that the coffee cups get recycled to live another life post-mortem after spending 37 minutes as a brand’s coffee cup, instead of ending up polluting oceans and forests.
Some brands may even put in some extra efforts to prove that they serve not just a cup of coffee, but a cup of sustainable coffee through environmental positive farming. Keeping this in mind, some coffee shops have started using economical spoons instead of stirring rods while other shops have taken an extra effort to use organic options like soy or almond milk, and other vegan options instead of dairy products.