Coffee Baby & Kids

Background Coffee Baby & Kids is dedicated to making children's clothing. It is an Argentine, family-owned company created in 1983, led by Ignacio Klappenbach. Coffee once had over fifteen stores in Argentina and exported to Chile, Paraguay, Mexico, Uruguay, Peru, and Bolivia. Several years passed, and the textile industry began to face serious difficulties: the economic crises in the country, along with the import of clothing and the drop in sales in the domestic market, led to the loss of more than 17,000 jobs between 2015 and 2018. The situation became increasingly difficult, and in May 2018, Ignacio was considering closing Coffee. "Nacho is my brother-in-law; he is married to my wife's older sister. I was aware of the situation and wanted to help him by adding value through design," comments Gonzalo Berro. Nacho, for his part, always admired the work of Grupo Berro, but felt that Coffee could not invest in a studio of our level. "At the end of 2018, during a study trip I took to Yale, there was a discussion about the case of Target and its clothing sales strategy. After thinking and thinking, I wrote a WhatsApp message to Nacho because I believed we could do a good job for Coffee." – Gon, I have no resources; the company is even delayed in paying salaries, and I am analyzing whether I can continue with the business or not. – Don’t worry, Nacho. Let's try it, and if it works well, we’ll see. – Let's do this: if it works, I'll allocate a percentage of the profits to you. Idea The product from Coffee was excellent, and its quality was nothing to envy from international brands. But it lacked the needed attitude. With its background, what Coffee demonstrated was its attitude: the value of family, always looking forward, and striving for maximum quality and attention. That was the idea: in the attitude. We needed to awaken that attitude and convey it. Development Coffee needed to renew itself, show that—as a brand—it was attentive to changes, not only technological ones—selling in-store or through e-commerce—but also attentive to changes in its customers. We decided to present Coffee Baby & Kids as a more updated brand, but above all, a brand that understands change, development, and personal growth. We proposed a color change, appealing to a combination of blues and oranges, and a new brand design, incorporating an exclusive typographic alphabet that presented the logo more loosely, and consequently, more "fresh," like its users, the kids. Once the brand was defined, we sought to add the hallmark of large European chains by working on their bags, labels, and even their perfume. From the Multimedia Design area, we fed social media while conveying the same idea: childhood is attitude, and every child is different. With these focal points—combined with product quality—Eduardo Paso Viola, one of the partners within Grupo Berro, led the social media strategy, restoring Coffee's attitude, spirit, and charisma. Results By applying the new brand to all visual contact elements—stores, graphics, website, social media—the Coffee team members felt renewed, eager to do more. In coincidence with a new financial engineering and the incorporation of new processes, partners from other countries requested to renovate their stores, at their own investment, due to the empathy they felt with the new design. The salespeople, who travel the country with the new catalogs developed by Grupo Berro, were excited to see how "the new brand" presented their products. "Everyone tells me the same thing," Nacho commented, "that it's much easier to sell this way: people see the catalog, and it’s something else; they realize Coffee is something else." The design should achieve that: stand out. And in terms of results, Coffee not only got its accounts in order—certainly thanks to integrated decisions that cannot be attributed solely to design—but also represented a return from its sales to Grupo Berro. From thinking about closing all operations to renovating stores and venturing into e-commerce, the Coffee case demonstrates, in our view, how strategic design positively impacts the client's business.