What lies ahead for Costa Coffee’s next owners?
Reports said that Coca-Cola is looking to offload the brand.
The next owners of Costa Coffee will be buying in a brand that is well-liked, associated with quality, and has a better-than-average customer satisfaction, a report by brand insights firm YouGov revealed.
In late August, several media outlets reported that Coca-Cola, Costa Coffee’s parent, had tapped investment bank Lazard to review options for offloading the business.
In a report by YouGov, Costa Coffee’s next owners will be buying a relatively good brand, that is endeared to UK consumers. Data from YouGov BrandIndex UK shows that Costa outperforms the average UK coffee chain across several key measures. Impression scores, which track general positive and negative sentiment towards a brand, sit at 22.4, 8.5 points ahead of the sector average of 13.9. Perceptions of the brand’s Quality are also better than the typical UK coffee chain: scores sit at 18.7 compared to an average of 14.0, a 4.7-point difference.
Customers are broadly happy with Costa Coffee, with Satisfaction scores of 23.9 compared to an average of 13.7 for the industry (a gap of 10.2 points), whilst Recommend scores – a measure of advocacy – are 15.3 compared to a score of 10.5 for coffee chains on the whole (a +4.8 difference).
These positive perceptions contribute to Costa’s overperformance when it comes to Index scores, a measure of brand health. These of 13.5, which are ahead of the industry average of 9.9 by +3.6 points.
One area, however, that the brand underperformed in is Value for Money, which are -6.5 compared to the industry average of 2.0, a whopping -8.5 difference.
“So if Coca-Cola successfully sell Costa, the new owners (whoever they may be) will be acquiring a well-liked brand associated with quality, with better-than-average customer satisfaction and with advocacy to boot. But they might also want to look at how they can address perceptions that other coffee chains offer better bang for buck: it could be the one weak area in an otherwise strong brew,” YouGov said.
