This #theslide is dedicated to another crazy project we started at isobar & iProspect in Greece after building a sunglasses business from scratch.
This time the idea came from the insight that a company of 80, spends annually almost 50.000⏠in coffee.
The most rational decision is do what most organisations do. Outsource this job to a certain coffee chain (Starbucks, Costa Coffee or Everest in Greece) to set up shop inhouse and offer less expensive and more convenient service to employees with no hustle.
But we saw an opportunity there. We wanted to see how the FnB industry works from the inside. We figured out that more than 40% of our clients somehow use FnB as a distribution channel, so it does makes sense to better understand how this channel works. Actually a few months earlier we ve been in the process of setting up a virtual burgers & Snacks store for Philadephia Mondelez. Take a look at the video case:
Our operations team, which is not your usual Ops department, started exploring the industry, through meeting with suppliers, visiting expos, negotiating with vendors and business planning. 3 months later we knew almost everything one needs to know to start a coffee shop. But, really, it wasn't about the coffee shop. We understood how any FnB business works. In the future we will be so much more confident understanding the challenges some of our clients face. And this is the most important thing that came out of this project.
Our coffee shop is unlike any other of its kind. It's made for the people, by the people and is funded by them. We couldn't offer free coffee, but we didn't want to make a Peny for profit, Just break even.
So how does this work? As people buy more coffee, the price gets down. Every 3 months we review the coffee shop's PnL, adjusting the rates to make sure we make no profit.
With this in mind, the "Side Project" coffee shop was born. With products of the highest quality (our coffee is 85% robusta đ) the side project has now more than 50 SKUs and the business has been running for the past 3.5 months.
The brand identity was obviously developed by us and we are all so proud about it.
Since the business started running, we got even more creative. We used the side Project to motivate people to start their day earlier. Every day from 09.00 to 09.30 there's free coffee for everyone. That didn't have the results we expected. We should have thought of it: we are in the ad industry.
We are now trying something new. Working with Nestle ice cream brands (now Froneri) for the past few years, we decided to add Nestle ice cream in our menu. A while after, we decided to start an experiment to figure out if a consumer insight about ice cream consumption is actually true.
Ice cream consumption is one the most viral things happening in the physical world. When you see someone eating an ice cream you suddenly get a viral indulgence, and you want one for yourself. This is something we learned on a discussion a few years back from Petros Zissou, a former client now Global innovation Manager at Nestle in California.
Beginning last week we started an internal promo, where if you are the first one buying an ice cream for this day, you get it for free. We want to see if the ice cream consumption will actually rise, seeing at least one individual daily eating an ice cream.
We've no idea what's the next thing we are trying as part of this project. We do have some things in mind for the future that are a bit more complicated. The most important one is getting the coffee shop public in the neighbourhood through online delivery.
The idea behind it that the more the revenue from external orders the lower the prices for the people until it gets completely free. We would then expand our knowledge on how the booming industry of online delivery works, and also how a local business can thrive through the use of location based advertising, and (why not?) leaflets. It a harder one to try since it will get more of our collective energy to make it work, but hey, we do have amazing people on board.
This is all part of a wider effort to transform ourselves from a ad agency, to a valuable business partner for our clients, understanding the challenges they face, being in their shoes, and looking at the big picture with every given opportunity. As part of this process we are changing the way we work, our structure, the people we are getting on board, as well as the very core of our service offering to become a valuable partner for the digital economy.
This is not my idea. This is the outcome the collective creativity and work of the people of isobar and iProspect in Greece. But there are certain people that had an important role in this project.
Costas Mantziaris. isobar & iProspect CEO and my partner in crime for the past 12 years, with whom together we've been day dreaming since the first day we met.
John Panagiotou who within isobar iProspect redefines every day what the role of COO actually stands for.
Popi Kesanli who built this business from nada.
Marianthi Raftopoulou & Elisa Pardalidi who brilliantly elevated this project by coming up & designing its brand identity.
Maritina Laskaridou for designing these slides which are part of a presentation we delivered with Costas at this yearâs annual isobar Global Summit.
John Violantzis our beloved barista who's industry knowledge helped us realise this project.
Zoi Oikonomopoulou, Alexandros Pirenis, Miki Kirki, Stratos Iordanidis, Petri Kapetanopoulou and people I forget (sorry guys) that somehow took part in this project along the way.