We toured Café Britt today and tasted even more coffee! Surprisingly ticos do not really drink any coffee directly from Café Britt and I think this happens because it is more of a touristy type of place rather than having its audience directly be Costa Ricans. In addition I feel like they would buy the cheaper coffee that they can buy from the supermarket rather than buying high priced quality coffee.
Despite having an extreme emphasis on coffee during the coffee tour, Café Britt’s most popular product is their t-shirts. In the supply chain, Café Britt would be the roasters, suppliers, and sellers. Unlike Doka where they are the manufacturers and make the coffee beans themselves, Café Britt buy coffee beans from other plantations and sell it to the public. They roast these beans and distribute them to different audiences such as airports, hotels, restaurants, and the general public.
My team focuses on the design and launch which is practically the marketing of the business. Just from going on the tour itself, you could tell how much effort they put into their tours. There were funny tour guides to keep you listening and invested, there were multiple different places to taste different types of coffee rather than just one, and they hang up their trip advisor awards and a link to write a review for them. It is clear that they rely mainly on the coffee tours to market themselves to people who visit which could incentive them to buy coffee and pass along the word to other people. After the tour was over, there was a souvenir store that was full of more coffee samples, tons of chocolates filled with different fruits, t-shirts, coffee beans, and hats. They brand themselves and utilize the most square feet they can in the store in order to grab the customers’ attention.
Besides their coffee tours as a marketing strategy, they sell their coffee beans to hotels, restaurants, and airports; this gives them a unique advantage due to the varying locations where their coffee beans are placed. We also learned that they have used social media influencers and athletes to promote their product; they will taste the different coffees for free in exchange for a couple posts reviewing the coffee and promoting it. They truly are determined to have their marketing strategy be top tier and utilize everything they can from personable walking tours to social media marketing. Overall their different types of marketing is the source of their financial success.
