Building a brand community: two different strategies

Coffee lovers taking a bath

Today, brands are well aware of the power of consumers. With blogs or social networks, consumers are able to connect, to discuss and to challenge brand's legitimacy.
We are now going to analyse what are the strategies of our two premium regarding brand communities, do they have full control upon it? Are they able to answers consumers concerns?

Nespresso exclusive club:
Nespresso strategy is clearly to control their consumers, to make them feel part of an elite group. Indeed, once you buy a Nespresso machine, a number is attributed to you and you become part of the club. Then special dedicated events invitations or promotions are sent to you, everything is made to make you feel important for the brand. This strategy is very efficient, it enables Nespresso to know precisely its consumers and to target them in a relevant way.

Nespresso facebook page

Another part of their brand community strategy is their facebook page. On it, consumers can express themselves, post photos or directly address the brand. For instance, Nespresso promotes jewelry made with used Nespresso coffee pads by a Facebook fan.

Concerning Lavazza the feeling of brand community belonging may be less powerful. The brand has no such thing a "Lavazza club". Lavazza tries more to derive a brand community feeling through social media. They have on their website a dedicated page to "Community" which is an interactive platform in between the brand and its consumers. This page clearly enhance consumers to "express" themselves by posting questions, liking the Lavazza facebook page or suscribing to Lavazza youtube channel.

Eventually, it seems that Lavazza and Nespresso have two different positioning regarding their brand communities. Meanwhile Nespresso tries to be in total control of its customers, Lavazza leave space for the community to express itself.

Nespresso's brand endorsement strategy goes on

A new icon will embody Nespresso brand values. This time, it is a European actress promoting cappuccino. This slight change is meant to appeal American consumers (who fancy more coffee with milk)

source: http://theadsmag.com/penelope-cruz-the-new-face-of-nespresso/

Competitive war : a tight market competition environment

An interesting article about the present war going on between Nespresso and Ethical Coffee Company (which sues Nespresso for smear campaign and unfair competition practices) http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-05/nespresso-sued-in-paris-by-ethical-coffee-for-smear-campaign.html

Coffee at the working place : a different target, a different branding strategy

We seen before that both Lavazza and Nespresso play on senses and emotions when targeting their usual consumers. However this emotional branding strategy is changing when these two brands attempt to reach BtoB market (to sell machines and coffee pads to companies).

Indeed coffee (outside of work) is associated with coolness, going to a cosy bar in the city, but above all having a good time at home after lunch. Indeed the initial idea of Nespresso was to give the opportunity to consumers to have at home an expresso of the same quality of the ones that are delivered in restaurant or specialized places.

Coffee at the work is thus linked with very different ideas in consumers' mind. It is not about taking its time, enjoying a peaceful moment at home, but more about having a small break, little chat with colleagues in a stressful environment. We see well that the nonchalance of Georges Clooney in Nespresso ads is not really compatible with the common associated ideas of the workplace.

We are now going to see how do these brands address themselves to professionals and they are able to change their identity without loosing their premium attributes.
First of all, concerning Nespresso, it is interesting to see that they have a dedicated website for professionals (entitled "business solutions"), it is not a sub-part of their general website but a real other website.

Nespresso professionals dedicated website

The website is really simple and sober, the colors used are in line with the global visual identity of Nespresso. However we do not get that feeling of exclusiveness and classiness. The global atmosphere of the website is much more neutral. We cannot find any emotional elements usually linked to the brand (Signature: "What's else?" or Georges Clooney pictures)


It appears thus that Nespresso choose to use functional branding instead of emotional branding when targeting the professional market.

Lavazza professionals dedicated page

Concerning Lavazza even if they have not a dedicated website for professional, they instaure in their website very different ambiance according to the place where coffee is taken. In their page at work, we can see that all the codes of the working environment are used: the smart guy in a suit, standing up near the coffee machine gives an impression of dynamism and efficiency which far from the home cosiness feeling.