+1 Communications Agency AB was strategically and creatively responsible for the assignment, together with Löfbergs, and Context Media was the responsible media agency
The Swedish coffee brand Löfbergs has been experiencing a downward trend for a long time. The brand has lost market shares and relevance over a 20-year period and was ranked number 4 in Sweden.
In 2022, a mission was created with the aim of reclaiming a leading position in the category by reinstating relevance and value to the brand.
The challenge was to generate growth for Löfbergs within a category that is declining, due to changing drinking habits, with the conditions of an existing budget and no new product launches.
Löfbergs had been on a downward trend for a long time. The brand had lost market shares and relevance over a 20-year period and was ranked number 4 in Sweden (market share by volume).
The coffee market is notoriously difficult to navigate, especially for those who are not market leaders – and Löfbergs had been in fourth place for many years.
Other players had successfully established clear positions in the market. Either like Zoegas, associated with specific product characteristics that have been popular, e.g., dark roasted coffee, or like Arvid Nordqvist, which has had the largest media budget in paid media for several years.
The confidence at Löfbergs was faltering, and various campaigns, aimed at modernizing the brand and gaining shares, were conducted without success.
The family-owned brand boasted a lot of history, pride, and good values. And not least, Löfbergs is the most sustainable company and coffee on the market. But none of this was communicated to the market or yielded the desired results.
Our challenge was simply: How do we take a dormant brand back to a leading position in the coffee category with an unchanged budget?
Furthermore, the category as a whole was declining as a result of changing drinking habits away from coffee.
How do we create growth for Löfbergs within a category that is losing ground?
In 2022, a mission was created with the aim of reclaiming a leading position in the category by reinstating relevance and value to the brand.
Strategic Choices, Insights, and Design
Entry Point
The motivation analysis revealed that morning coffee is the moment people associate with coffee and the gateway to daily coffee consumption. No player owned this moment, and there was an opportunity to use Löfberg’s origin – the family business that rises every morning and does more than what is required.
The solution was: What do you get up for?
Positioning was explored with Kantar’s BrandPower.
Target Group
The growth strategy led us to prioritize the large buyer target group of coffee, heavy-users (everyone, 30-56 years old).
We embraced these existing heavy consumers, and together with the other prioritized group, City Dwellers, there were motivations around true origin, folkiness, and fair values.
Distinctive Assets
We highlighted Löfberg’s beloved and overlooked colors, which were made heroes. All units were designed to recreate memory structures associated with purple and yellow. For example, the commercials start with “What do you get up for?” in these colors.
Value-Driven
Besides “What do you get up for?” being associated with the morning and the day’s first cup, it suggests the motivation to take on the day and accomplish something. The Löfberg family goes their own way and does more than what is required from bean to cup. This was summarized in “We get up for a better morning coffee” as the answer to the question we asked consumers. Elegantly, the value-driven approach is combined with morning coffee.
Tone
We made the advertising as folksy, authentic, and transparent as Löfbergs. Instead of superficial, cool, we documentary highlighted people at campsites, on playgrounds in a town in Dalarna, in a gymnastics club in Täby, a dance band-loving flea market owner in Värmland, etc.
Reality often surpasses fiction when daring to step outside the controlled creation.
Löfbergs is the only one increasing, by a whole +42%, when the category decreases by -7%.
Löfbergs’ market share has increased from 17% in 2022 to 24.5% in 2023, and the brand is now number 2 on the Swedish market.
The mission has been awarded Gold in the 100-wattaren.
Thinc is a group of entrepreneur-driven companies within the marketing communication and tech industry. We have offices in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Umeå, Luleå, Växjö, as well as Oslo, Norway, and Kathmandu, Nepal. The first company in the group was founded in 1991, and the group has existed since 2005. We currently have around 140 consultants.
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