The market research also showed that consumers suffered some uncer-
tainties about choosing and making ground coffee. This led them to seek
the reassurance of a familiar brand which meant, in turn, that if the
Cafédirect brand was to succeed, it would have to combine the fair trade
appeal with a strong brand identity. Although the technical aspects of
getting the flavour and quality right were within the Cafédirect team’s
capabilities, building a brand and getting shelf space in major supermar-
kets was really breaking new ground for them. Nevertheless, these were
the minimum requirements; the ‘hygiene factors’ which have to be met
merely in order to compete but which do not bestow any additional com-
petitive advantage.
Establishing the superior value needed to acquire this competitive edge,
which would then justify a premium price to cover Cafédirect’s high raw
material cost and diseconomies of scale, essentially had to be achieved
through the fair trade message and a pack design which denoted quality
and conveyed fair trade symbolism.
The promotional campaign to launch the brand
One reason for entering the ground coffee sector was because it was
thought to be much less competitive than the instant sector and the brands
less well established. Furthermore, since research had indicated that
people are sometimes confused and usually uncertain when buying
ground coffee, the introduction of Cafédirect may just give them the reason
to choose one coffee brand over another. However, to achieve this,
Cafédirect needed to inform their potential customers of the product’s
unique offering and to build up the brand. Recognizing the need to invest
is one thing, finding the capital to do it is another; resources were very
limited at Cafédirect!
The choice of promotional techniques available for this purpose was
further limited by the nature of the value being offered to consumers.
Although sales promotion may be relatively inexpensive, and perhaps
even self-liquidating, special offers, coupons and contests were felt to con-
flict with Cafédirect’s brand values. Money-off tactics left consumers won-
dering who was losing out.
Despite these constraints, by mid-1991 the Cafédirect team felt that their
brand proposition was now sufficiently strong to make inroads in the
ground coffee sector; the decision was taken to launch within a year and
detailed launch plans were worked out. Prior to the launch date, stalls at
the Good Food Show and the Global Partnership Exhibition were used to
raise awareness of fair trade issues. Early samples of Cafédirect coffee were
served free to railway passengers and leaflets distributed by Oxfam staff,
who answered passengers’ questions about fair-traded products.
The supplier and alliance market domain 201