Coffee conversations with CCD's Nagaraj

Summer is back and how! For the youth, rising temperatures call for slurping on a deliciously cold, refreshing beverage to cool off and simply get reenergized. Keeping with this trend, youth brand Café Coffee Day (CCD) has launched the ultimate summer refresher, ‘Summer Slam’, a mouth-watering range of chilled smoothies and slushes bursting with unique fun flavours and brimming with taste that will invigorate its young patrons like no other. 

The smoothies are a range of a divine creamy concoction with bite size pieces of the key ingredient immersed in it that will leave one slurping and snacking all at once. Rasmalai Smoothie is the royal Indian mithai re-imagined as a rich, creamy beverage. It carries almond flavours with the very prominent bite of a rasgulla. The Strawberry Pomegranate Smoothie is a delicious cool creamy mix of strawberry and pomegranate, a perfect tease to one’s taste buds. Mango Peach Smoothie is the king of fruits blended with the best of peaches guaranteed to satisfy the most intense of fruit cravings.

The slush variants burst with juicy tropical flavours that will leave one slurping for more. The Strawberry Blast Slush consists of strawberries blended with the goodness of pomegranates chilled to perfection that is sure to cool ones senses. The unique Tropical Spice Slush is the wonderous mix of jalapenos to the tropical fruit granita to spice things up. The Pink Lemonade Slush is lemonade reinvented. It is sweet and tangy and loaded with the goodness of pink grape fruit.

At the launch we at Adgully caught up with Bidisha Nagaraj, Group President Marketing, Coffee Day Global Limited to know more about their plans in the way forward.

Speaking on the new launches, Bidisha Nagaraj, Group President Marketing, Coffee Day Global Limited said, “As the weather warms up, there is the need for a serious and refreshing thirst-quencher. The youth are on the lookout for something that’s fun and tasty and has the instant cool appeal. Our latest offering ‘Summer Slam’ is the perfect summertime refresher that is not just chilled, but offers the youth a delicious range of smoothies and slushes in combinations and flavours that are unique and absolutely refreshing.  We are sure it will be a hit amongst the youth.”

On asking about their café food framework, Nagaraj said, “We are very particular about what we do and we do everything under the framework of Café food. It is the right kind of 4 O’clock food you’re looking for. Not many people know us as food people. But we have our understanding of what the consumer really wants with his beverage. Therefore, our launches are in that frame.”

Throwing light on whether QSR joints are a threat to them, Nagaraj says, “Consumers have a purpose of walking into a CCD. It might be that of a meeting or of celebrating birthdays, or social hangout with friends. Sometimes people come to café’s just to be themselves. So there are different states of mind with which people come to our café, be it for a “me state, or a social state or a business state. On the contrary one visits a QSR only when they’re hungry.”

“We’ve never felt that other international joints are a threat to us. We always believe more the merrier. The country has the appetite to have at least 5000-6000 café’s. If we look at the target audience that the international brands target, it’s a different audience. It’s not my consumer who has Rs.100 in his pocket and can come and grab a beverage. Our biggest strength is one celebrates the way one is. One doesn’t have to put on special shoes to walk into the café.  So those are the subtle things that Café Coffee day has carried on consecutively for the last 19 years,” she went on to add.

Nagaraj goes on to add that their core target audience is typically of the age group of 16-26 years and their menu is also designed keeping in mind their taste. Some of their offerings are Green Tea, Coffee Beans and more.

Shedding light on making the café experience better Nagaraj said, “If one sees the touch points like our locations are usually near colleges, our furniture is in groups of two or more bundles and we also do a lot in music and there is a big plan in the way forward. From a menu stand point, we have products that one can either buy for themselves or combo’s if they have come in groups. So we have a product for all ‘need states’ and an experience that we build around it. We have a monthly magazine called Café Chronicle. It’s in collaboration with Deccan Chronicle and that adds to their experience.”

Speaking about the experience the café brings for its customers, Nagaraj says, “One is the experience. The second is the culture of café food that Café Coffee Day has created like pastries is the right kind of food that goes with hot beverage. Similarly savouries are the right kind of food that goes with our cold beverage. The third opportunity is to spend time by yourself even with Rs.100 in your wallet.”

The brand has always been active on Print, Radio, Digital, Social Media and Paid Media. They had a TVC three years back, but television is not the medium they are looking at targeting. They’ve got most of their awareness through word of mouth. Apart from that they also do e- couponing and m-couponing.

Nagaraj went on to add, “For the summer range we’re doing an interesting digital campaign called the Slam Game.” By Archit Ambekar | Twitter: @aambarchit