Keurig Perks
My Role:
Creative Direction
Visual Identity
System Design
Email Design
Social Design
During my time as Senior Brand Designer at Material+ I contributed to a wide range of corporate branding projects & marketing campaigns. Client industries included healthcare, energy, fashion, food, entertainment and more. The project that most stands out is leading the visual identity development for Keurigs new rewards system.
Project Objectives
At the time, Keurig was already a popular global brand, but they were falling behind in the market. Keurig’s needs for this engagement included developing an enticing visual identity for their rewards system that was approachable with a high perceived value to customers. Data identified a critical factor in achieving this goal and raising overall brand awareness was reaching a younger demographic through an increase in social media engagement.
Keurig Perks Branding
Social Media Facelift
The Challenge
The primary challenge was developing a visual system that felt authentic rather than promotional, made rewards feel tangible, and modernized the brand to attract younger audiences without alienating Keurig's loyal customer base. Throughout the engagement, I worked closely with strategy partners and client stakeholders to ensure creative decisions aligned with customer insights and business objectives.
The Risk
It just so happened at this very moment, a key competitor; Dunkin was reeling from a massive failure after devaluing their own rewards system. They were being shredded across the media landscape. As you might imagine, this news made the folks at Keurig trepidatious about a serious investment of resources into a rewards program. There was a lot of work to do to earn the trust of the Keurig team.
Brand Audit
With those goals and pitfalls in mind, I started by taking an in depth look at the visual language Keurig had in place. I dove deep into their brand guidelines, and I reviewed how they showed up across their digital presence, web, and social. I noted what I believed had been working well for them, and what might be holding them back.
Findings
What I found was that their existing showcase photo style is very minimal, and clean, with a palette of warm muted brown tones. Though this aesthetic has served Keurig’s core audience well thus far, myself and the team felt the look was somewhat dated and ultimately contributing to pigeonholing them with a certain demographic, and conveying a perception that lacked authenticity.
Competitor Analysis
at notable competitors as identified by the strategy team for their overlap in offerings and rewards program structure. Most notably, that included Starbucks, dunkin, and Panera. All with slightly different approaches to loyalty and rewards programs. Each with pros and cons to their experience. And through that analysis I identified opportunities for Keurig to differentiate visually, and leverage strategically. I found that these competitors had established clear ownership positions: Starbucks owned status, dunkin owned simplicity, and Panera owned personalization.
The Way In
Rather than competing directly, I identified an opportunity for Keurig to own "ritual". The daily coffee experience that uniquely happens inside the home. A distinct competitive advantage that Keurig held. That piece of insight really served to inform the visuals and messaging that would become the perks brand.
Naming
Often times the naming stage is handled by strategists and writers exclusively, but I advocated for an all hands approach. In my experience, naming can be particularly tricky and time consuming. The legal hurdles tend to filter out 99% of possibilities before the client even gets a say. My frugal philosophy is to cast a wide net.
With contributions from the entire team, we’d compiled a list of one hundred or so names. We put them through the rigors of legal clearance, and internal vetting, we showed the client our favorites, each with a hearty backstory. Short, concise and appropriately on the nose. It had the sticking power the Keurig team desired…
“The convenience that Keurig offers is unmatched. I use my Keurig every day. Some days multiple times… I would love some sort of rewards program, and I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only one!”
- Candace B., Keurig Evangelist
Logo Considerations
Through informative conversations with the Keurig team, and thorough consideration of the definitive qualities of the core brand, the creative team and I decided the most appropriate solution would be a new wordmark lockup that incorporated the core KEURIG wordmark.
Explorations
Here you'll see some of my logo explorations. Instances where I’m trying things like using a modified version of Keurigs primary typeface, as well as ones that use their secondary slab serif. I looked into script and hand lettered options which I felt could imply a sense of fluidity.
In these instances I explore how to balance the parent logo with the perks mark; should it be bigger, smaller, nested, inline, stacked? What weight most evokes the tone we are after? Should it be uppercase, title case? Etc.
The Winning Mark
After a couple rounds of revisions, we have our final logo lockup for Keurig Perks. Where we landed is a modified, light setting of their primary typeface, all lowercase. It’s approachable, and unpretentious. It strikes a healthy balance in visual presence. There's appropriate contrast in weight between the two marks to help delineate. It sits nicely stacked and inline with minimal variance. One of the more subtle options, but a great centerpiece for an evolving legacy brand. The client loved it, and at the end of the day, that is what truly matters.
Identity Considerations
Taking my learnings from the somewhat subdued final choice in logo, it seemed Keurigs appetite for change was conservative. In the brand extension phase, I fully expected to be confined to the tonal territory their users were familiar with. While I was given the go ahead to explore bold, fun directions, the last thing I wanted to do was offer up something off base that might sacrifice customer experience or brand recognition.
Brand Pattern
As a core element of the visual system, I developed a celebratory pattern featuring chunky icons inspired by Keurig features and products.
Visual Language
I built a limited color palette, centered around the core warm browns of Keurigs palette, with an lively energetic red as the primary accent, and a nice warm burgundy maroon with a gradient option between the two for depth and richness. I also designed a supplementary pattern of stacked K cups to imply stacking points, and some simple graphic accent elements along with a couple photo framing treatments to help break from the very clean formulaic sharp styling and inject a softer human touch, further alluding to cozy rituals.
Early Touchpoints
Keurig loved the work and immediately began incorporating the style into promotional touchpoints from the website, to digital ads.
Earning Perks
Next I explored ways in which point accumulation and reward earnings would be visualized. With the intent to show up with consistency across channels like email and customer dashboard. This was a key opportunity to address the core customer complaint of rewards information being unclear, and to make progress immediately understandable at a glance. Small moments to inform, packaged as moments of delight to maximize engagement.
Building Loyalty
Those design decisions rolled into larger composition considerations. I worked extensively with strategy and creative leadership to architect information, maximizing comprehension and follow through. This included A/B and multivariate testing to different beta groups before landing on final layouts.
Early adopters of the new program, longtime Keurig subscribers were invited to the beta program to test performance before the wider rollout. These are examples of some of the early emails beta members would see in their inbox, for instances like how-to’s, rewards reminders and more.
Social Rollout
You can see here in the early social media posts an immediate lean into a more natural, and less staged depiction of Keurig lovers, enjoying the ritual and culture. Paired with simple messaging tying into the ease of earning Perks, and the aspects that make Keurig different
Tonal Shift
With the core visual identity approved, the final step in our engagement was to translate this fresh tone of voice, and solve for Keurig’s social media aspirations. My immediate advice was to incorporate more of an organic, user generated feel into their Instagram.
Small changes can make a big impact; Show peoples faces more, have subjects in natural settings, leverage trends and influencers, etc. Overall make the feed less of a fashion show, and more of a casual coffee date.
Before
After
Influencer/organic posts
Embracing Influence
At a glance it’s clear to see the philosophy has been adopted, and has yielded a high level of engagement. I’m proud to say my team and I are responsible for pitching some popular campaigns like “my morning with Keurig” showcasing peoples morning routines, and how they incorporate Keurig products. And “How do you Keurig” that made for some hilarious and quirky Instagram posts.
