Costa Coffee Unveils ‘Costa Club’ Loyalty Proposition with Value at Its Heart

Costa Coffee has unveiled Costa Club, a new loyalty proposition with value at its heart. Originally launched in March 2010, the brand’s long-established loyalty scheme, the Costa Coffee Club is one of the largest in the UK with over six million members.

M&C Saatchi worked closely with Costa Coffee to develop the new proposition, which replaces the previous Costa Coffee Club Scheme. Costa Club offers a simplified, frictionless and easy-to-understand digital-first experience.

As the nation’s favourite coffee shop brand, Costa Coffee’s aim was to update its scheme to make it the most loved loyalty app amongst its audience of six million app users. M&C Saatchi worked closely with Costa Coffee to create the proposition with input from a specially selected group of 17,000 consumers, curating its benefits to ensure they would reflect what customers love most about the brand.

Costa Club sees the coffee experts move away from a points-based loyalty scheme. Members can receive a free drink of their choice after purchasing eight coffees, and as part of its ongoing sustainability efforts, Costa Coffee is offering a free drink to anyone who uses a reusable cup to purchase just four drinks until 31st March 2022. Members can also choose any cake from the sweet counter for free on their birthday, as well as enjoying a host of other exclusive rewards and treats.

Costa Coffee’s ultimate ambition for Costa Club is for it to act as a platform to boost brand love and preference in the coming years, as well as being a driver of growth and market share.

Annabel Mackie, Managing Partner at M&C Saatchi, said: “It’s been hugely rewarding to work with Costa on their new loyalty proposition. Costa Coffee is the nation’s favourite coffee shop, so it was imperative that we develop something with the potential to become the nation’s favourite loyalty programme. Based on extensive customer research, we’ve created a simpler, easier-to-use scheme with generous, tangible benefits, and we can’t wait to see how it drives even more brand love amongst members.”

To coincide with this reinvigorated loyalty programme, Costa Coffee has worked with Pablo London to create a new brand identity and strategic positioning for the Costa Club to help propel it into its next chapter.

The new positioning celebrates the feeling you get when you get something for free. To bring this to life, Pablo worked with Barcelona-based design studio Cabeza Patata to create a quirky range of characters to capture the spirit of the new positioning and communicate the feeling of ‘freeness’.

The characters also represent the diverse and eclectic consumer base that the nation’s favourite coffee shop reaches, with Pablo working with the Diversity Standards Collective to harness cultural insights and relevance of the characters.

This campaign marks another successful advertising launch for Pablo and the UK&I team as it continues with its working relationship beyond the original partnership of the Costa Coffee Global account.

Pablo were appointed in 2019, after a pitch to work on the brand’s Global account. Since then, the agency has gone on to create the hugely successful UK 2020 Christmas campaign as well as several seasonal campaigns, including the celebratory 50th Birthday campaign for both Global and UK markets, as well the current bold UK Summer campaign.

Tim Snape, Executive Creative Director at Pablo, said “I’m really proud that we’ve built such a strong family together and am pleased and excited that we’re extending the relationship.  There’s so much innovation and product development going on it’s like being in a coffee flavoured Willy Wonka factory every day. Our new work for the Costa Club reflects the fun side of Costa Coffee we’re exploring more and more, giving anyone, anywhere a taste of the unmistakable feeling of freeness.”

Jon Fisher, Head of Digital UK at Costa Coffee, said: “M&C Saatchi and Pablo have been amazing partners in creating and reimagining what loyalty means for Costa Coffee. They’ve helped us to deliver a simple and more generous proposition, which will continue to build on the love that our customers have for the Costa Coffee brand. We are excited for the evolution of the programme as we continue to listen and learn more from our customers.”