building a brand

The past week has been spent in an intensive market research and branding seminar with consultants from KIT, the Royal Tropical Institute of the Netherlands. The workshop started slow, with lectures on market research. I found the initial classroom aspects a bit dull; it didn't help that I was suffering from a renewed bout of homesickness. The first afternoon we went to Arusha to interview consumers in supermarkets. Unfortunately due to the holiday many of the supermarkets were closed by the time we got there. Seeking coffee drinkers who spoke English comfortably, I ended up at Africafe where I enjoyed a decent but expensive latte, complete with rosetta, and stared longingly at their majestic La Marzocco GB5. Energized by my latte, I enjoyed the chance to interview coffee drinkers. The major finding of our combined research, in the stores, on the streets, and in the cafe, was that almost all coffee drinkers in Tanzania drink Africafe instant coffee. It's quick and easy and tastes good (I personally disagree with the last point, but apparently it's good for instant at least). This definitely poses a challenge for KNCU because the ground coffee market is just a small section of the small coffee market. But as we learnt in our focus group blind taste test on Tuesday, we have a superior product that both coffee people and Africafe drinkers prefer, and which retailers and institutions are interested in purchasing. The market may be small but there's definitely interest in our product. I think there's a lot of potential for KNCU Gold, rebranded as Union Coffee. The trick will be promoting our product to get people to try it in the first place, and then maybe even convincing them that making coffee from roast and ground beans is almost as quick and easy as instant, and tastes so much better.

The workshop definitely got more interesting by Day 4, when we finally started working on branding, developing a brand key, brainstorming names, exploring the 5 Ps - price, product, placement, promotion, pack, thinking about slogan and promise and logo. After plodding through research and theory, we had finally reached the action portion of our week. Ideas were shared, designs made, things happened. What the follow-up will be is to be determined. We lost about half the workshop participants after the first day, but I think the people who remained throughout the week are pretty dedicated and hard working and have what it takes to see this project through, provided they continue to get enough support from the managers and board of KNCU to make things happen.

In other news, I leave tomorrow on safari to Lake Manyara, Serengeti, and Ngorongoro Crater. I'm off in search of lions and elephants.