Today’s visit to Cafe Britt was a very different from our tour at Doka. Unlike Doka, Cafe Britt uses an unique approach by employing actors to guide visitors instead of traditional tour guides. These actors, while still incredibly knowledgeable in the intricacies of coffee production, base the experience on humor and entertainment. What caught me off guard was when I learned of their use of actor names! They really went all out to sell they experience. This experience seemed tailored to appeal to American tourists and gave the whole experience a distinct vibe. Also the place was beautiful! Here are some pictures…
Another suprising fact I found out is that coffee isn’t their most popular product. If I had to take a guess, I would say it is the chocolates. We were able to try a chocolate with tropical fruit inside, and it was VERY good.
If you remember, yesterday I talked about how Doka didn’t roast the beans, but only prepared them for roasting. Britt picks up where Doka left off and roasts the green bean, making them down stream on the supply chain. We learned in a presentation today that Britt actually owns Doka, so this makes sense. Doka does the first part of the process, then gives it to Britt to finish off. Britt bought Doka so they do not have to rely on outside sourcing of coffee beans, giving them more security in their company.
One thing that I saw that they did very well was plan out their marketing strategy. They use the tour as a good experience with lots of coffee tasting stations to get the consumer to see how high quality their coffee is. They they end the tour in the gift shop, where it is very hard to resist buying something! After they buy something and take it home, they will run out, and want to buy more. Then they will order from Britt due to the high quality. Eventually Cafe Britt will have a regular buyer.
From a planning perspective, this seems very well thought out, and I admire their approach. It seems very effective in engaging the user and giving them samples is guineus. I learned a lot of cool marketing strategies today, and if I ever open up a coffee company, I would certainly take a few tricks from Cafe Britt!