Story
Leveraging a ten-year-old technology, borrowed from their experience finely milling flour used in biscuit production, Kenco knew they had the ability to make what they then called micro-milled coffee. They came to us to help them develop the strategy to get it to market.
Solution
We completed fast, iterative insight work, coupled with visual prototypes of what the end product could look like, to learn our way to the answer. After 3 weeks we had a winning concept, a category name and the key features of this new product locked down. We called the category ‘wholebean instant coffee’.
Results
Kenco’s ‘Millicano’ product launched in 2011. Within 4 weeks, it had sold nearly a million packs, and became their most successful coffee launch ever. It was responsible for huge incremental growth and pulling in non-instant drinkers and rejectors of instant back into the brand franchise. Mondelez, owner of the Kenco brand, is the biggest player in the super-premium market, which is now worth £57.8m in value terms.