Despite being one of the best known Canadian confectionary brands in history, we were losing relevancy and share to new category entrants and an ever-expanding competitive set. We looked to our heritage in order to set up COFFEE CRISP for the future. By pointing out the flaws of the original bar to position our new product, we increased sales and garnered new shoppers for both, reversing a decade of decline.

COFFEE CRISP is too well known for its own good. Some brands would kill for that problem, but for COFFEE CRISP it’s driving year over year decline. While COFFEE CRISP doesn’t suffer from a lack of awareness or love for its distinctive taste, it has been deemed too messy and indulgent for every day.

Today with infinite snacking options, how people treat themselves has changed significantly since the glory days when COFFEE CRISP was known as ‘a nice light snack’. In a competitive and growing category, chocolate bars are now also competing with everything from healthy snacks to specialty dessert coffees.

Our objectives were a 5% increase in sales YOY, an ambitious 22% lift in new shoppers to COFFEE CRISP and an increase in 4-week period velocity, +14% of COFFEE CRISP Regular 50g bar (for CCThins 36g), and +17% of COFFEE CRISP Future Consumption formats (for CCThins 171g).

Beyond its unique flavour, COFFEE CRISP is known for its size and shape - a big sturdy rectangle, a crumbly multi-layered treat – a COFFEE CRISP demands consumption in a single sitting – and preferably without an audience. Everything that once made it so beloved is now holding it back.

COFFEE CRISP has a great deal of nostalgia, but in the new world of snacking options people had moved on – they weren’t sitting around waiting on COFFEE CRISP to innovate.

The brand was boxed into a very rigid chocolate coated rectangle, and they would have to break out of that box in order for the new product to be accepted.

Goal: Show how new COFFEE CRISP Thins Are The Perfect Fit for Everyday Snacking

People don’t want to broadcast their indulgences to the world.

By virtue of association to coffee, COFFEE CRISP historically attracted an older audience, but that base was shrinking.

Desk research into food trends told us millennials and Gen X had re-defined how they snack, looking for more on-the-go formats that allowed for portion control and social snacking. Ethnographies identified original COFFEE CRISP as too big and messy, code for ‘this isn’t something I want to consume in front of others’. And so, the brand was disappearing from the public eye.

For people to embrace new Thins, they needed to know it tasted just like the original, but you could eat them anytime, anywhere without drawing attention.

We needed to get past the reasons people weren’t picking COFFEE CRISP to remind them why they loved it in the first place and give them a reason to try new COFFEE CRISP Thins.

We weren’t going to win convincing people COFFEE CRISP Thins were better for them. We needed to demonstrate that Thins allowed them to fit more COFFEE CRISP into their lives.

We took a risk; leveraging awareness of the iconic original COFFEE CRISP bar, only to make fun of it. By exaggerating situations in which a traditional COFFEE CRISP was just too much, we showed that COFFEE CRISP Thins were just right. We set about triggering the craving, and removing the awkwardness.

To change perceptions, we launched in broadcast with scenarios where it’s hilariously inappropriate to eat a COFFEE CRISP, regardless of how much you want one.

Contextual OOH highlighted scenarios people were experiencing, like a packed streetcar, where eating an original COFFEE CRISP would be awkward, but Thins would be perfect. Social reinforced this, reassuring lapsed fans that Thins are everything they love about the iconic COFFEE CRISP, just thinner.

The campaign successfully reversed a decade of decline:

-Grew total COFFEE CRISP sales by 9% during the first 12 weeks of the campaign, almost doubling the 5% objective

-While Thins were available for 12-weeks prior to media, total COFFEE CRISP sales only grew 1% that period vs. the 12-weeks before Thins were available

- +52% increase of new shoppers to COFFEE CRISP, more than doubling the 22% objective

- Almost doubled targets for SKU velocity (Nielsen calculation for product turnover: sales divided by points of distribution)

- CCThins 36g achieved velocity of +30% of COFFEE CRISP Regular 50g bar per 4-week period, doubling the 14% objective

- CCThins 171g achieved velocity of +31% of COFFEE CRISP Everyday Future Consumption formats per 4-week period, nearly doubling the 17% objective

Also succeeded in driving category growth, with COFFEE CRISP Thins bringing +4% new shoppers to everyday chocolate, a very developed category.