We know, You Need Coffee.

Our new campaign for Upper Crust breaks this week with ads running in Metro, various fun things happening in and around stores, and a radio campaign to follow. More on the latter later, for now here is a preview of the print ads. The campaign is aimed at positioning Upper Crust as a place that provides morning commuters with their coffee fix. A couple of us get the train in to the office, and so it was obvious to us that there was loads of potentially great material in the reality of pre-caffeine commuters that we see every day. Expertly brought to life by photographer extraordinaire Jonathan Cole, and our talented friends at Gas & Electric.




As always, if you're interested you can see more Sell! Sell! work here.

17 comments:

  1. Nice work! I've definitely seen those pre-coffee faces on morning trains myself.

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  2. Really like the composition and type layout on the first two - simple but effective!

    Luke.

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  3. i like when print ads look like the start of a magazine feature, rather than dominating the spread with a huge bleed image..

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  4. Saw these this morning. Absolutely spot on scenarios as of course people only read the Metro on the train to work in the morning.

    Just a thought, this is kind of advertising 'COFFEE' rather than 'UPPER CRUST'S COFFEE'. Sort of a Market Leader's campaign as opposed to, say, Trott-style Predatory Thinking? I'm still learning about this type of thing so I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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  5. Thanks all.

    Cheers Josh, me too. I don't think it's a case of designing to look like editorial, but rather using the best editorial layout techniques for the situation. It's a shame, but ads quite often subconsciously mark themselves out as 'not worth reading' by the way they are laid out, way before someone would have even read them. Good editorial design presents information to people in a way that encourages them to get involved with the content.

    Bentos, it's a good question. I quite like Mr Trott's binary thinking and predatory thinking approaches, they're similar to the kind of thinking we tend to use here (though I'm not a fan of blanket philosophies that people try to make everything fit into).
    In the term of that thinking, Upper Crust is the market leader in terms of offering coffee in stations. This campaign is very focused on commuters on their way into London. UC has more places to buy coffee at the London destination stations than anyone else, so the simple tactic is to point people in the direction of UC as the first place to get their morning coffee fix. People might not ordinarily associate UC with coffee. It isn't trying to compete with other coffee brands (something it would struggle to do), rather pull forward their coffee purchase by making people realise that UC is there to fill that need. So in effect, it isn't just advertising the idea of coffee (it's not attempting to create new coffee customers) but it is advertising that it's right there to fill your immediate need for coffee (to people who would have already bought coffee anyway). Hope that makes sense?

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  6. oh, man.

    photos are priceless!

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  7. I laughed out loud when I saw the woman one in the Metro on the train. Nearly woke up the bloke who was
    asleep next to me.

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  8. I saw the last one this morning, made me laugh.

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  9. Dan The Writer11 May 2011 at 15:06

    I like that you've gone for the simple in these. It makes them stand out in the paper, and the pictures are funny.

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  10. Saw them this morning. Lovely stuff chaps I think you nailed these...

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  11. I've actually noticed this campaign which is something. Couldn't you have put in loads of terms and conditions and prices and phone numbers and web addresses and twitter and facebook symbols and promotional codes and smallprint and all that shit to make them fit in with the rest of all the other ads in the shiterag that is Metro?

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  12. Spotted un in metro.
    Smashing stuff happening in the towers!

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  13. Suited commuters "asleep" on concourses of all mainline stations in London this morning were drawing concerned looks from commuters. Apparently recurring on weds and again next mon and weds between 730-930am.

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  14. When I first started listening to the radio ad, I immediately braced myself to avoid whatever subtle psycho-subliminal trick I was about to be subjected to. I almost fell off my chair when I confronted my maths teacher with a harp and then that bloke came on hollering about coffee. It was hilarious. This is the first time I've actually searched the internet to re-listen to a radio ad. As a rule I don't really give a toss who I buy coffee from, but I will be going to UC today as a mark of approval for this subtle-as-a-brick and totally bang-on campaign.

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  15. Good campaign but limited effectiveness as it ignores non coffee drinkers and doesn't need to, so in part a wasted effort.

    Someone needs to look at the buy 5 get one free promotion, which either does or doesn't apply to other beverages such as tea. So the consumer is confused and the staff certainly don't know so cannot advise.

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  16. Peter, the aim of the campaign was to sell more coffee in the morning.
    So as you can probably imagine, coffee drinkers were our priority.

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