Marketing Disasters:  Seattle’s Best Coffee

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It’s no big secret that I’m a big fan of good coffee, heck I love a good cup of coffee and Seattle’s Best is one of my favorites!  My family is not a big fan of Burger King, but one thing that got me going back to Burger King is: they have Seattle’s Best coffee. 

So I’m not just a casual fan but a fanatic…

This is what lameness looks like!  

'How about lavender?'  'How about not...' 

Awhile back I ran out of our normal coffee (we used to use Costco’s brand that is roasted by Starbucks) and it was starting to taste weird to both my wife and I, we decided to switch over to Seattle’s Best French Roast, this stuff is really good, so good that if they have coffee in heaven, this is how it would taste (well not really, Heritage Black Gold is THE BEST coffee in the world) but I digress.

Anyway, I’m on a mission in Meijer to get some Seattle’s Best French Roast and while trolling the coffee isle, I notice that they don't carry Seattle’s Best anymore.  I figured that they quit selling it, maybe sales weren’t that great over here in the Eastern Time Zone so I just picked up some Starbucks and left.  When I got home I told my wife 'Meijer isn’t selling Seattle’s Best anymore' booo...

About a week later, I’m in Kroger looking for some coffee and noticed that they don’t carry Seattle’s Best anymore either.  So I’m looking around at what they do have because the Starbucks just isn’t getting it. 

With this in mind I’m picking up coffee bags, sniffing the wonderful aromas that come out of the vent when you squeeze the bag and I pick up a strange looking bag with a big number 4 on it, it smells ok so I study the bag very closely, to my horror it’s Seattle’s Best, with some kind of a lame logo that you can barely read.  

What the heck??

Oh well I thought, I’ll just pick up some French Roast and be on my way right?

Uhhh, not so fast…

It appears that the marketing department saw the movie Spinal Tap one too many times and now they are marketing their coffee in ‘Levels’, level  1, level 2 level 3, up to level 5.  What a bunch of idiots!  They didn’t have the French Roast so I just bought some Starbucks and went home disappointed.

In my brain, I flashed back to my original trip to Meijer and was wondering if they actually DO sell Seattle’s Best and perhaps I just didn’t recognize it.  On my next trip I was shocked, they still do, only with their ‘new lame logo’…

I put on my marketing brain and analyzed what happened here:

1. They changed their logo and packaging so much that EVEN THEIR MOST RABID CUSTOMERS couldn’t recognize it.  How stupid is that?
2. Their product line changed so I couldn’t find a ‘level’ that I liked.  Why do the level thing anyway?

Look at this and then look away quickly before 'the ugly' gets on you!

One of the ugliest cars that I’ve ever seen in my life was the 1999 Ford Taurus, it was a special kind of ugly, mud fence ugly.  My sister had one that we called ‘the jelly bean’, she used to tell us how ‘practical’ it was and how ‘good on gas’ it was and how ‘reasonably priced’ it was.  Just like a girl that you would meet with a ‘good personality’ which, back in the day, was code for ‘fat’ ‘ugly’ or both… 

My brother and I are both car guys and we were talking one day about the prototype unveil in Ford’s Board Room, imagine all of the Ford 'big wigs' sitting there with an easel that has a cloth draped over it.  Everyone is sitting there in anticipation of what is under that cloth.  The marketing schpeil is over, excitement is at it’s peak, the cloth is pulled away and there it is, the prototype of ‘the jellybean’ is right there in front of them.  People make comments like ‘wow, look what you’ve done!’, ‘wow that’s modern looking’ and then leave the board room thinking ‘that’s got to be the ugliest thing that I’ve ever seen!’

This scenario had to have occurred in the Seattle’s Best Board Room.  Everyone said ‘wow, that’s modern’ ‘hey, that’s trendy’ but in the back of their mind they are thinking ‘boy, that sucks’, but no one would say it because they are all probably ‘yes men’ and were afraid to voice their true opinion.  I used to work for Brand Packaging, I know how the designers think, and it’s not good.

What a disaster!  I’d love to see their sales figures after this new packaging nightmare.

Rockin' old logo

Their old logo rocked, I don’t see how you could change it, especially when your loyal customers can’t even recognize your brand anymore.  Not only did they change their logo, but I couldn’t find the roast that I liked anymore so I have no more use for the whole company.

Isn’t that tragic?

Freakin’ coffee is the ultimate continuity plan!  My grandmother has always used Folgers coffee, for ages!  Folgers had a customer that would, and still does, go to the store twice a month and buy coffee for 10 bucks, imagine replicating that a million times, that’s money in the bank!

Money in the bank that Seattle’s Best won’t have from me and my family, too bad because I really loved their French Roast! 

They lost a great customer who would have made them at least $32 per month…

I hope someone at Seattle's Best reads this so I can get my coffee back!!