With Christmas just around the corner, brands are preparing for what is often their busiest sales period - and coffee shops are no exception. Whether they’re serving up iconic pumpkin spice lattes or keeping it simple with subtle dashes of cinnamon and ginger, the festive season offers a chance for coffee shops to cash in on the inflated shopping crowds - and Christmas-themed branded coffee cups have become synonymous with this.
In today’s post, we’re taking a closer look at this now annual tradition and the success enjoyed by big brands like Starbucks and Costa Coffee.
Battle of the brands
Over the years, the design updates that coffee shops make around the festive season have come to serve as signals to shoppers that Christmas has arrived. This is by no means a new concept, with Starbucks first releasing a range of branded coffee cups for the holidays in 1997 - though, surprisingly, none of the four designs boasted the iconic red associated with their cups now. In the same way that the Starbucks cups have evolved, so has the public’s demands.
In the battle to tempt Christmas shoppers’ insatiable thirst for hot beverages, brands are being both bolder and more creative than ever in their attempts to stand out from the crowd. And even though the big players - Costa, Starbucks and Caffé Nero - continue to dominate the coffee bean scene, the growing popularity of independent roasters presents opportunities for the little guys to win some of the winter trade.
A festive frenzy
Here in the UK, the hype around coffee shops’ Christmas cups, drinks and items builds up into a festive frenzy - with newspapers often announcing that year’s range as early as mid-summer.
With consumers anticipating the moment they can grab their favourite seasonal hot beverage each year (complete with a Christmas-themed coffee cup, of course), brands need to tread carefully. Whether it’s Costa being berated for taking white hot chocolates off their menu, or Starbucks coming under fire for choosing ‘less Christmassy’ cups, it seems consumers are sensitive when it comes to seasonal beverages - so bear this in mind when choosing cups or curating a drinks menu for your own shop.
On the other hand, when the cards are played correctly, coffee shop brands can amass some of the highest sales figures they see all year. Encouraging customers to buy over this period has been made much easier through fun, playful Christmas designs - with many even making trips to their favourite coffee shop a yearly tradition. Who can blame them? When the cold weather sets in, there are few nicer places outside of your own home to sip a hot drink and watch the snowflakes fall outside.
How you can you replicate this success?
As a small enterprise, we understand that your packaging budget isn’t limitless - but that doesn’t mean you can’t inject a little Christmas spirit into the drinks you serve. At R+R, we stock a range of suitably festive coffee cups for shops that serve hot drinks - so you can keep things Christmassy without breaking the bank. And if you’re looking for something tailored to your branding, we can design and manufacture bespoke cups at affordable prices.
What’s more, you’ll find a huge number of biodegradable coffee cups in our range, including compostable Christmas-themed cups made from two layers of sustainable board with a plant-based PLA lining - so you can protect the planet while serving up seasonal drinks to your customers.
