Thursday October 27, 2005

Coffee and beer: explore your inner connoisseur

Cool bevvies are hot and the warm beverages are cool this week, if recent trends spotted in this week's press are any indication.

First on Sunday came the news in the NYT about Illy's "pop-up cafe" (or "coffee themeland" this week in SoHo -- a temporary cafe/museum/educational space intended exclusively for the sake of brand-building. Let me restate that: the Illy cafe is not being built to make money. Revenue is not a key driver of this space. Rather long-term relationships with Illy's market and specifically their brand are Illy's goal.

Here's the scoop from Sunday's New York Times: Situated on West Broadway in SoHo, in a 3,500-square-foot, two-story space formerly occupied by Dom New York, an eccentric housewares store, Galleria Illy is a sort of coffee themeland. It is divided into an art gallery, library, classroom and espresso bar. Nothing beyond desserts and coffee drinks - including a $2 espresso and a $5 cappuccino - can be bought for immediate gratification, though many products, including the company's distinctive vacuum-packed canisters of coffee, can be ordered from computer kiosks in the store.

Scheduled to close on Dec. 15, after just three months of operation, Galleria Illy is what is known as a pop-up store. But its soft-sell approach - centered more on branding than on profit making - thrusts it into the vanguard of temporary retailing. (In Illy's case, it is an effort to connect the company's coffee to high art and culture.)

Big applause to anyone willing to front a vision like this -- I'm happy to clap for any organization that's willing to step up and go beyond the immediate pack of trinkets, widgets and shiny spinning pinwheels for the sake of conversing with customers rather than speaking at them and expecting manna from gleefully open wallets in return.

[Which prompts the possibly troubling transitional question: today, now, at this moment, are your marketing efforts, product-development initiatives or advertising programs of the spinning-wheel, short-term buzz-generating sort, or are you working on something a little more holistic, er, meaningful, er, sustainable for the long haul? Or am I just full of BS, oversimplifying the issues? Anything's likely, but the truth shouldn't be hard to uncover.]

Moving from the hot to cold, Wednesday's Wall Street Journal (sorry, no link/print readers or online subscribers only) had a nifty article on beer glasses at pubs: some European brewers and distributors are finally catching on to the value of presentation at the bar, and they're pushing branded swillmugs to go along with their beers. They're offering their own glasses to pubs at a major discount (compared to pint-glass prices) and occasionally give the stuff away.

It's one of those ideas that's long overdue: if men traditionally drink from the pint and women are tempted by the somewhat sexier, sleeker look of a nice cocktail, why should premium beers be relegated to the land of the ages-old pint glass? Speaking as a craft-brewing male from Oregon (read: we pretend to take this stuff seriously), I'd have to say that many of my own beers don't belong on a shelf aside a can of Blatz -- it's my handmade, finely tuned creation, and to have it downed in a few simple moments without a hint of magic in the consumption is a crime.

Apparently some brewers like Leffe and Hoegaarden are feeling the same way. Fortunately for them they have an opportunity to pursue the magic of the brand beyond means of the tongue.

Quick takeaways from the WSJ article: smaller glasses appeal to a crowd that may not normally want a full pint; aromatic brews are much more likely to be appreciated if the glass has a full-bodied bowl shape, suited for sensory stimulating pre-drink whiffing; and the sexier the glass, the higher the perceived level of quality. Which means it's likely that people are willig to, um, pay more.

Bonus: the glass-proud beer companies are rewarding bartenders who complete training courses which tout their beer's finer qualities; audits are performed by mystery shoppers/drinkers, and when a barkeep articulates particularly acute knowledge of Brand X's brew, they're rewarded on the spot with big-ticket gifts like a hi-end home audio system.

If you're smelling a pattern, we're drinking the same stuff: the bigger picture here shows a movement away from consumers as simple customers and towards consumers as connoisseurs. Coffee and beer? That's just the beginning. You and I could probably sit down for a nice lunch conversation around the notion of connoisseur as a measure of status -- 'cuz that's really what this is all about -- but I'll let it roast/brew/steep for you to reflect on. At the end of the day, tho, these guys are finding ways to get to that little expert inside all of us who's just waiting to bloom. And they're doing it in mighty tasty fashion. I'll drink to that.

(And...sure, I'll glady pay a premium for it, too.)

( Oct 27 2005, 06:30:30 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]