Triggering Demand: How Coffee-Maker Nespresso Turned Drips Into Gushers
18.05.12

Nespresso, the product that lets you brew the perfect cup of espresso at home, has made parent company Nestle the leading seller of coffee in Europe. But that success was a long time brewing. Nestle bought the basic design for a single-serve espresso machine in 1974 and introduced a machine in the 1980s. By the late 1990s, the business was still touch-and-go. Today, though, Nespresso enjoys revenues of $3 billion and 10 million Nespresso Club members.
What took it so long to succeed? The biggest problem was simply getting customers to try the "Armani of coffee," as former Nespresso CEO, Henk Kwakman, once described his kitchen appliance. Without some sort of a trigger--an event that spurs people to take action--consumer inertia rules the day. To convert potential demand into real demand, Nespresso needed the right triggers.
Taking the helm in 1997, CEO Kwakman made finding them his priority. First, he switched from print advertising to TV: When the elegance of the Nespresso machine was demonstrated rather than merely described, demand increased several-fold. Next, he expanded a pilot program offering Nespresso to first-class airline passengers. By 2000, some 1,100 planes flown by 20 different airlines were using the machines, and 3.5 million travelers a year had a chance to sample the product.
Source: Fast Company