Bad Coffee

We started with market and audience research. We learned that cold brew has the most caffeine of any ready-to-drink product. In fact, no other kind of coffee has more of the stimulant. This helped us determine that men between the ages of 25 and 49 were our primary target audience. Our secondary audience was women, 35-49. A look at the competition told us that a simple colour palette would let Bad Coffee stand out.

When one of our designers said that sipping Bad Coffee was like being hit in the face, we had an aha moment. It was like caffeine hitting the bloodstream. From there we came up with the type treatment and illustration. The black-and-white colour scheme matches the tell-it-like-it-is nature of the brand.

We launched Bad Coffee with a Shopify site as well as through owned social and online channels. We also created sales sheets to help the brand get on grocery-store shelves. We outlined a strategy for expansion across Canada and the U.S., but the initial focus was on Alberta. The results were good. Our soft launch saw sales of $9,000 with 2,200 cans being snapped up.