Hot drinks brand Wild Bean Cafe has launched a new creative developed by ad agency TBWA\MCR.
The new campaign is the biggest marketing investment ever for Wild Bean Cafe in the UK and aims to challenge long-held assumptions about forecourt food and drink, reframing Wild Bean Cafe as “one of life’s pleasant surprises”.
The brand, which is found at BP fuel stations, said: “Wild Bean Cafe has been serving up freshly prepared coffee and high-quality food for decades, yet many drivers pass it by, unaware of what they’re missing. The new campaign embraces Wild Bean Cafe’s roots as a petrol station cafe while tackling negative perceptions around quality head-on.”
“Challenging these pre-conceptions is central to the creative which playfully captures the moment of reappraisal when people realise: this is much better than I thought.”
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The brand explained, the out of home creative leans into humorous moments of realisation while acknowledging people’s scepticism – “Delicious milky lattes, from a fuel station. Holy cow.” – which is accompanied by truly tasty-looking product photography.
Similarly, the audio ad uses humour, making parallels between the unexpected nature of being asked to record a voice over “next to a mountain waterfall… on horseback… strumming a harp” to the unexpected high-quality coffee at a fuel station cafe.
Rob Quartermain, brand and communications manager UK at BP said: “With this new campaign we want to be saying to people: take another look, we’re far better than you might think.
“We didn’t want to shy away from people’s preconceptions of us and this helped us be hyper-focussed on our goal, which is to jolt people into giving Wild Bean Cafe a second look. We wanted to take a provocative attitude, one that isn’t afraid to be authentic, witty and self-deprecating.”
The campaign will run across out-of-home, ad vans, social, radio and in-store during September. Social content has been developed in partnership with CHORUS\MCR, the specialist joint venture between TBWA\MCR and Vagabond Digital.
There are over 320 cafes across the UK. The brand’s franchise offer for independent retailer partners was introduced in 2020.
