Brewing Up a Bold Brand Refresh
Client: Sheetz Brothers Coffee
Brewing Up a Bold Brand Refresh
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Led strategy and creative for Sheetz Brothers Coffee brand premium launch and ongoing quarterly promotions. Includes television, digital video and audio, point of purchase (in-store and on-lot), out-of-home, print, social, PR activations, and giveaways.
Sheetz coffee unit sales doubled during the launch campaign, and retained 30% of the lift post launch.
270k free cups of cold brew coffee served on National Coffee Day as part of the campaign, which earned 92.8 million media impressions and a 22% lift in cold brew sales, with a sustained lift for the remainder of the year.
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Sheetz Convenience Stores, a $7.2 billion privately-held convenience store chain, launched a comprehensive premium coffee line, rolled out across 700 stores in 6 states. This project provides highlights on the strategy, design, branding, and promotional campaign work my team and I created for brewed and frozen coffee drinks. As the creative and strategy lead, I provided strong leadership for the team’s tremendous contribution to the brand’s growth. Other specific Sheetz campaigns are represented independently within my portfolio.
Sheetz invested in a comprehensive overhaul of their brewed coffee offering, with new, higher-quality freshly-ground beans, new brewing equipment, and new barista service offerings.
Research showed that people were willing to pay more for coffee when they perceived the beans to be from a higher-quality source. This human truth shaped the creative strategy and narrative around the sourcing of Sheetz coffee beans. Long format video provided an opportunity for customers to learn more about the story behind the beans.
Short format video, social, digital audio, and email marketing rounded out the campaign.
Additional campaign touchpoints included cups, coffee carriers, and in-store murals educating consumers about the brand's elevated coffee offerings. Video at touchscreen order-point illustrated the bespoke, premium nature of the new coffee offerings.
After the "kick in the beanz" launch campaign, ongoing coffee campaigns featured the line's key selling points (like baristas), and depicted premium coffee drinks rather than basic brewed coffee.
COLD-BREW COFFEE CAMPAIGN: Sheetz needed a campaign to create awareness of their premium cold-brew coffee to Millennials. We learned that the target audience wasn't willing to give up their "fancy" coffee drinks, but they wanted to be smart about this line item in their budget. We showed that Sheetz is an option for high-quality coffee drinks, and is an option for those who don't want to go along with "the herd".
In developing the strategy and brief, I provided a recommendation that Millennial women potentially represented a more lucrative audience for this promotion. We went through a few rounds of testing to validate this target audience focus.
Other than pivoting from Millennial men to women, the tv spot came to life almost exactly like we planned in the original storyboards.
Once the client felt confident that this was the right move, we pivoted and cast talent to focus on the female target audience. I enjoyed creative-directing this spot, because I had room to be highly detailed in creating a wardrobe and set color palette inspired by the browns and creamy texture of cold-brewed nitro coffee.
Along with television and digital video, the campaign included social, digital audio, a WAZE takeover, POP, and a billboard buy focused on boards near Starbucks locations. On National Coffee Day, Sheetz gave free cold brew to customers, serving a total of 270k cups. The campaign culminated in 92.8 million media impressions and a 22% lift in cold brew sales, with a sustained lift for the remainder of the year.
COFFEE COUNTER DESIGNS: Custom chalkboard artwork was created for each of the different types of coffee beans, and was used for barista/coffee counter designs, cups, napkins and in-store signage.
COFFEE POT RETIREMENT: As part of the coffee overhaul, Sheetz got rid of their old coffee pots and brought in a new carafe system. We created a campaign to alert customers to the change, and to send the old coffee pots off into retirement.
FROZEN COFFEE PROMOTION: To promote Sheetz premium frozen coffee drinks during the summer months, I wrote the creative strategy around the idea that these drinks were so cold that they were almost like a popsicle treat for adults. A quick way to communicate extreme cold is the image of getting your tongue stuck to a flagpole in winter (thanks to the movie, A Christmas Story-!), so that's what we did for the creative campaign.
We created wraps for beverage cups, encouraging people to stick their tongue on the cup and post a picture to social media, for a chance to win prizes. Billboards, point of purchase, and messaging on Sheetz tankers helped support the campaign.
Project Highlights:
Led strategy and creative for Sheetz Brothers Coffee brand premium launch and ongoing quarterly promotions. Includes television, digital video and audio, point of purchase (in-store and on-lot), out-of-home, print, social, PR activations, and giveaways.
Sheetz coffee unit sales doubled during the launch campaign, and retained 30% of the lift post launch.
270k free cups of cold brew coffee served on National Coffee Day as part of the campaign, which earned 92.8 million media impressions and a 22% lift in cold brew sales, with a sustained lift for the remainder of the year.
About my role:
I was the strategic and creative lead on these projects, and was the copywriter for the work depicted here.
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