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Mr. Coffee buzzes young consumers

Sunbeam wants to ensure the Mr. Coffee brand maintains its lead by attracting younger coffee drinkers. The new ads will use celebrities and athletes that appeal to people in their 20s to 40s. Olympic snowboarder Chris Klug shown in a recent Mr. Coffee ad. PHOTO: NY TIMES

Where have you gone, Mr. Coffee? A caffeine-craving nation turns its eyes to you.

What's that you say, Mr. Coffee? You've neither left nor gone away, but it seems like that to younger consumers?

With profound apologies to Simon and Garfunkel, not to mention Joe DiMaggio, the rewritten lyrics above summarize the rationale for a new campaign for Mr. Coffee, the line of coffee makers and related products sold by the Sunbeam Corp.

While Mr. Coffee remains the best seller by far in its category, Sunbeam wants to ensure the brand maintains its lead by attracting a younger coffee drinker. But even with the new campaign, which has a budget estimated at US$5 million for the next 12 months, some specialists in brand identity wonder whether Sunbeam may need to do more, perhaps even consider renaming the product because of the associations the name invokes.

For the first six months of this year, Mr. Coffee had a market share of 24.2 percent by unit sales and a dollar volume of US$82.3 million, according to the NPD Houseworld service of the NPD Group in Port Washington, New York, a market research company that began tracking housewares last year. Black & Decker was next with 14.9 percent and US$45 million, then Proctor Silex at 11.1 percent and US$21.5 million.

But more expensive brands like Braun and Krups, perceived as more contemporary, have been nipping at Mr. Coffee's heels among that at-home coffee drinker, if an appliance can be thought of as having heels.

And younger consumers are less familiar with Mr. Coffee than shoppers who still remember when DiMaggio introduced the brand in 1972 for a company called North American System as the first automatic-drip home coffee maker.

DiMaggio, the legendary New York Yankee outfielder, was retired for two decades when he was recruited by the founder of North American, Vincent Marotta Senior, a baseball fan. Marotta believed that to wean coffee drinkers from percolators, his new product needed a spokesman who would represent reliability and dependability. DiMaggio fit the bill because he held (and still holds) the major league record for hitting in the most consecutive games, 56.

"Certainly, there is a strong association" between Mr. Coffee and DiMaggio, "who is still recalled often by our faithful older consumer," said Mary Ann Knaus, vice president and general manager for the Sunbeam global appliances division of Sunbeam in Boca Raton, Fla. "But that's not in line with what we're trying to achieve now."

But Sunbeam faces a problem in pursuing a younger generation. Americans in their 20s and 30s have rediscovered coffee to a degree never imagined by coffee growers.

But those new coffee drinkers are leaving home to buy the beverage at coffee houses and cafes rather than remaining home to brew it with kitchen-counter appliances like Mr. Coffee.

"Starbucks isn't selling just coffee; it's selling a coffee culture and experience," said Jonah Disend, president at Redscout in New York, a corporate identity consultant.

"We forget that coffee is like a drug for many people," he added, "and what Starbucks has been so successful at is not only creating an addiction to the coffee fix but also an addiction to the ritual of purchasing that fix."

Knaus said that Sunbeam realized "coffee consumption patterns were changing, and we need to make sure we're changing along with them."

"Consumers need to know they can also personalize their coffee experiences in the home," she added, "and who better to do it than Mr. Coffee?"

That explains the campaign's theme, "How you enjoy your Mr. Coffee is up to you." It is being brought to life by two celebrity endorsers, in a nod to the DiMaggio heritage, with perhaps more to come last year. Both are intended to appeal to consumers in their 20s through their 40s: Chris Klug, the Olympic snowboarder, an athlete like Joltin' Joe, and Carson Daly, the host of "Total Request Live" on MTV and "Last Call" on NBC.

Each is presented in print advertisements, which are running in Cooking Light, InStyle and People magazines, lounging in an easy chair, drinking coffee brewed with Mr. Coffee. Klug is on a ski slope, Daly in Times Square near his MTV studio.

"We show the Mr. Coffee experience as part of their lives," said Marc Rappin, senior vice president and group management director of the agency working for Mr. Coffee on a project basis, the New York office of Foote, Cone & Belding, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

"We want to make the brand younger," he added, and one way to accomplish that is to demonstrate that Mr. Coffee "fits into the busy world" of folks like Klug and Daly.

A Foote, Cone sibling, Marketing Drive, is working on promotions for the campaign. There are radio commercials, a sweepstakes, events in stores that sell Mr. Coffee and a sponsorship of an exhibit of People covers and memorabilia touring shopping malls in big markets like Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles and New York.

But could Sunbeam be doing more?

Sexist name

"The name is a problem, and they'll just be tinkering around the edges till it's solved," said Raleigh C. Green, a principal at Corporate Voice in New York, which specializes in online brand communications. Green said the name is sexist, because it tells the women who buy most appliances "only Mr. Coffee can bring the right coffee experience to your man."

The partners at Group 1066 in New York, a corporate identity consulting company, agree another name ought to be considered, for different reasons.

While the campaign's approach and choice of celebrities make sense, said one partner, Mike Cucka, "I'm not sure in this day and age calling it Mr. Coffee is all that helpful" because "it seems a little formal and off-putting."

The other partner, Michael Megalli, said, "It seems very old-style and conservative."

The Group 1066 partners recommend a new name that implies technological innovation and also resonates with younger consumers. If there's iMac and iPod, they ask, why not iCoffee?

Rappin at Foote, Cone acknowledged that "there are a lot of schools of thought" on the Mr. Coffee name, but added, "Think of the millions and millions of dollars it would take to establish a new brand identity."

"Yes, we'd like to contemporize the brand and give it a younger appeal, but if we change the name, we'd walk away from the heritage with our base consumers, the fact it's a market leader and a lot of other good things," Rappin said. "We want to try to get people to rethink Mr. Coffee without having to reinvent it."
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