Costa Coffee crafts definitive, branded ‘Costa red’
Costa Coffee has an association with the colour red giving the brand a clear hallmark and making it easy to identify when strolling high streets around the world.
Costa Coffee has turned to Our Design Agency (ODA), a branding and communications agency, to assist with the delivery of Costa’s first brand colour toolkit in order to embed consistency in its expansion into the international market.
Costa currently serves 31 markets including China, UAE and the UK. As the brand continues to expand, it is also expected to provide consistent reproduction of the brand’s iconic Costa Coffee red in order to produce and deliver on-brand assets in-market. Over the last four years, Costa has focused on refining the customer experience across the UK market, with this now set in place, the partnership with ODA to develop a brand colour toolkit marks the next step of growth for Costa.
Matthew Williams, director of brand and insight at Costa Coffee, says, “The faithful reproduction of our iconic Costa red is vital for maintaining brand consistency as we expand around the world. This was a complex and painstaking job that ODA handled brilliantly. Adding some of our brand personality to the guide book was an inspired way of getting the message across.”
ODA’s brief was to create and deliver the definitive Costa Coffee red colour, then collaborate with the brand’s partners in order to ensure the reproduction across all of the different substrates, from exterior signage to packaging. Costa and ODA also put together a book for external suppliers in order to showcase the Costa Coffee red.
Grant Willis, creative director at ODA says, “Even though the book is intended for external suppliers, we set out to create something with real Costa Coffee personality. There are references to paint pots and brushes throughout. We also used a coffee stirrer in the paint pot as a visual pun to underline the importance of this colour to Costa Coffee.”
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