Tata Coffee's Mr Bean eyes a bigger market

With an eye to tapping the coffee wave engulfing the country, Tata Coffee Ltd (TCL), a subsidiary of Tata Tea, is test-marketing its new coffee brand Mr Bean in the conventional/filter coffee segment. With this initiative, the company is looking to break out of its regional stronghold and create a nationally relevant brand.

"The brand was launched last October with an interesting campaign across Kerala. The response from both trade and consumers has been highly encouraging. The advertising has generated unprecedented levels of excitement and curiosity about the brand among consumers. There has been rapid trial and adoption in its favour," MH Ashraff, managing director, TCL, told agencyfaqs!.

To whip up excitement right from the time of launch, the company roped in Saatchi & Saatchi, Bangalore, to create market-specific campaigns. The first Mr Bean film created by the agency and produced by filmmaker Lata Menon (wife of ace filmmaker Rajiv Menon) has an animated Mr Bean narrating the story of the bean - right from the plantation stage, through the various stages in processing, till the time it reaches the end consumer fresh and aromatic.

"This film was based on significant consumer insights gleaned from research done over the past one year. The innovative brand name - in fact, the entire concept - is aspirational, contemporary and attempts to rescue the hapless consumer from the ‘hostage' situation she has been in, courtesy competition. The brand seeks to leverage the plantation expertise and the grower's advantage enjoyed its parent, TCL," asserts Ashraff.

Agrees SG Premdeep, group account manager, Saatchi & Saatchi. "In general, more consumers are familiar with what happens to tea as tea gardens have been much romanticised in films. But very few know about the process that coffee bean is put through. So we decided to have the bean tell its story in an interesting format - where it sings and narrates how it got selected." The bean story is summed up by the tagline ‘It's the Bean that makes the difference'.

Given the response to its tentative first steps in this market, the company is toying with the idea of taking the brand national. "The brand concept has high potential for extendibility across categories and geographies," observes Ashraff.

At every stage, the ad emphasises the origin and pedigree as the key differentiator for a good cup of coffee. "Our coffee is made from beans that are grown over 20,000 acres of land owned by TCL across 26 estates in Coorg and Chikmagalur, Karnataka. This makes it the largest integrated coffee company in Asia," according to Ashraff.

The company produces over 10,000 MT of coffee annually. TCL has promoted four coffee brands in the domestic market since 1993. These include Coorg Double Roast and Coorg Pure in the conventional/filter coffee segment and Tata Café and Tata Kaapi in the instant segment. Meanwhile, TCL has a strategic stake in Barista Coffee Company, which dovetails its long-term vision of moving towards greater value addition and diversification. © 2003 agencyfaqs!