“We Want to Be Like Starbucks”… Coffee Industry Focuses on Color Marketing

Employees of Coffee Bean Korea are ordering drinks on the 16th at the store inside the headquarters in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, wearing purple fashion items. Photo by Coffee Bean Korea

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Hyewon] The coffee industry is focusing on so-called 'color marketing,' which places a brand's unique color at the forefront of marketing strategies. This approach aims to more easily convey information and images to modern consumers who dislike complexity and respond quickly to visuals by using specific colors.

According to the coffee industry on the 16th, Coffee Bean Korea and Ediya Coffee are actively engaging in color marketing that prominently features their brand-signature colors for the summer season.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, Coffee Bean held an event where customers who wore purple fashion items and purchased drinks at stores on that day received the same drink for free. Any purple item?from clothing to electronic devices, accessories, hairstyles, makeup, and nail art?was accepted as part of the dress code.

Purple also evokes the color of healthful 'berry' ingredients such as bokbunja (Korean black raspberry), mulberry, and blueberry. Coffee Bean's recently launched new product, the Purple Berry Yogurt Ice Blendy, is made from ingredients supplied by Gochang County in Jeonbuk Province.

A Coffee Bean representative explained, "The decision to use our unique brand color, purple, reflects a desire to return to the original spirit at the time of the brand's founding," adding, "All departments including store operations, sales, and marketing collaborated on this experimental 'customer participation inducement marketing,' which is being tried for the first time this year."

Ediya Coffee released a line of MD products using refreshing blue on the 14th. Blue, symbolizing trust and stability and enhancing concentration, is Ediya Coffee's basic brand color. To capture consumers' attention during the hot summer season, they developed MD products in a more 'tone-up' blue series. The 'Light Cold Cup' is a cup designed for iced drinks with cool colors and designs suitable for the hot summer. It comes in three types: 'Deep Blue,' reminiscent of the dark blue sea; 'Pearl Blue,' resembling the blue sky; and 'Pure,' which evokes freshness.

A representative successful example of color marketing in the coffee industry is Starbucks, which uses green from its store signs to interior design. Howard Schultz, Starbucks' CEO, replaced the brand logo's color with the green used by his previous coffee company, Il Giornale, when he acquired Starbucks in 1987. He explained the reason for using green: "Starbucks has a mission to educate consumers about good coffee. We planned an atmosphere to invite consumers weary of daily life into a wondrous and romantic coffee shop." The comfortable and stable image of green, now known as 'Starbucks Green,' has remained famous worldwide for 33 years.

Kim Min-kyung, director of the Korea KMK Color Research Institute, said, "As the weather gets hotter, striking colors like Hawaiian Blue and Aqua Blue, which reduce feelings of stuffiness, help open consumers' views and contribute to emotional stability," adding, "Especially during economic downturns, this kind of point color marketing tends to work better than in previous years."