Stretching A Brand Too Far? - A Costa Coffee Problem

Costa Coffee have had a monumental rise to prominence over the past 5 years or so. Now the UK's largest coffeehouse (and second in the world) there is quite literally an opportunity to purchase a warm legal stimulate around every corner.

This blog comes about due to a crazy scenario I encountered at an M1 service station a few weeks back. Upon arrival, there was an outdoors Costa Coffee stand. Great, nice and convenient. But inside there was also a fully fledged Costa Coffee, just around the corner from the service station hot food area which served, yup, Costa Coffee. This is not forgetting the two Costa Coffee instant machines I'd also walked past. So in one service station, on one side of the M1 there were no less than 5 places to buy the same brand of coffee. Talk about over-kill.

But it goes on. Now pretty much every petrol station in the land has at least one Costa Coffee machine. You can buy Costa Cofee branded refills for your Tassimo coffee machine. Filter coffee? No problem, you can buy Costa branded too! Fancy one of those insulated mugs to take a warm drink with you out and about? You can get a Costa branded one. Now even cafe's within Asda supermarkets have...Costa Coffee! The Asda outlet in Leeds Crown Point, for instance, serves Costa Coffee, but is only a few doors down from a Costa Coffee. Worse, I know of a Costa Coffee that is a joining a Next, which has a cafe, which sells Costa Coffee!

This proliferation of the Costa brand is broadly a good thing. The more chances you see the Costa logo, the more likely you are to be thinking about it and then the more likely you are to feel like having one. Secondly, if you like a product it could lead on to you buying another from a different Costa line. Everyone wins and Costa have branched out to pretty much every revenue stream you could think of (apart from instant coffee, perhaps that's next?)

But here's the flip side. I bought a Costa from one of those service station machines they have (except I was in a WH Smiths, who had 3 of the things in store) and it was awful. I've had one in the past and it was quite pleasant, but not this one. The machine whirred away for what seemed like an hour and what I got was nothing more than steam water, a hint of milk and hardly any actual coffee. I even asked for a 'FREE' Vanilla shot, but didn't get one.

Now, clearly, there was a problem with the machine. Things go wrong, such is life. But by pure chance, I ended up recently in an awkward conversation with someone at a table who happened to be a Costa technician. His job was to drive around, fixing all the broken Costa machines. He assured me that this is an all too often affliction and that the company has expanded far too quickly, resulting in a dive in quality.

A classic dis-economy of scale. Expanding too quickly leads to errors. Without a solid backbone in place, instead of actually gaining customers from having more places to buy your products/services, you start turning away people because they have had negative experiences. The problem Costa are possibly encountering is such and I will certainly think twice before purchasing one again. In the same way a positive coffee could persuade me to buy some instant Costa for home, a bad coffee could put me off the entire brand.

You see, by all means expand, but test, recruit, research and practice before you do. Otherwise, before you know it, Costa may just become a fad rather than a brand with any lasting qualities.

Update:

Not wanting to get left behind, this is the very first thing that greets you upon entry into the Leeds General Infirmary...I kid you not.