Café Coffee Day: Brand Transformation through Repositioning

Café Coffee Day pioneered retail café culture in India with its entry into the market in 1996. After enjoying success for more than a decade, the brand felt the need to evolve in order to suit consumer preferences and better compete in the market space. The Café Coffee Day management team commissioned a brand image study to better understand consumer perceptions. The results showed that although Café Coffee Day's “regular guy/girl” brand archetype had evolved over time, there was a clear gap between the intended brand identity and the image that was projected. To make the brand relevant to Café Coffee Day’s core target group (i.e., young, urban Indian consumers), the company had to make sure that its positioning was relevant and clear, its brand identity was refreshed, and its café experience was well defined and differentiated. Café Coffee Day wanted to identify various positioning platforms through analysis of the company, its competition, and its customers, and then to evaluate these platforms to arrive at an appropriate positioning choice.