North Cafe — A zen coffee retreat from the fast-paced world
SUMMARY
The Mission
The bustling city life is relentless, keeping people rushing back and forth. A break from that pace is rare in Qatar, which is exactly what the founders of North Cafe wished to create – an oasis where people can step into a different world of calm and belonging, and have a coffee break. Because of the ubiquity behind both coffee culture and Japan-ified businesses, we wanted to make sure North would be more than just another minimalist Japanese brand, or just another coffee house.
Project Approach
To gain more than just a Japanese identity, we worked with NORTH’s 3 stakeholders to design a unique brand personality that would still be distinctively, culturally Japanese. The cafe would rely strongly upon personable interactions with the baristas, hence, emphasis was put on the values that would be embodied by North, and how the promise of these values would be maintained and delivered upon. Certain aspects of the business required planning around to control costs and also account for yet-to-be-fulfilled dependencies, which our Discovery process surfaced for us to address upfront before committing to any deliverable, saving time and resources.
Manifestation
North gained clarity into their identity, direction, and what resources they require to grow. The North brand represents more than generic Japanese culture. It stands for effort; to connect, to improve, to provide, and enrich. Certainly, this includes dedication to knowledge and wisdom through training and experience. But the cold craft is rounded out with warm brews through empathy, valuing connection and sharing that urbanites need help rediscovering.
Services Provided
Brand Strategy
Positioning
Brand & Identity Design
Messaging
Communications Strategy
Positioning
Brand & Identity Design
Messaging
Communications Strategy
THE STORY
Jabor and Jazy are Qatari nationals who, steeped in life within Japanese culture for several years. Filled with an existing love for coffee, coupled with the desire to share the positives they experienced in Japan, they sought a way to share great coffee and great culture with their homeland.
With their Japanese barista friend, Yusuke, they successfully built positive traction with the locals through pop-up locations, and were ready to commit to their first permanent store. NORTH Cafe approached us to outfit their operation’s fit out, working closely together to ensure the space’s dimensions matched those of their equipment. The main problem though, was a hidden one – they did not know what they needed to turn their ideas and values into actionable insights and projects.
We worked on the brand strategy that would help manifest the North personality and keep it consistent across touch-points – a systematic approach to create organic relationships with customers. Leading the project with our Discovery process, we got to know the target audience profiles North Cafe would need to appeal to, informing our design of the collateral and experience.
Based on our business goals exercise, we could make joint decisions with North to reduce their costs, such as through procuring a customizable magnetic menu display to help them maintain flexibility as their menu evolves. Social media would be a major touchpoint of North’s, which made the creation of social media communication guidelines vital, that training and outsourcing of social media work can be expedited and begin on clear foundational principles. A competent content creator should be able to produce quality social media content from the get-go with clear and complete specifications.
The cultural fusion of meticulous care and sunny hospitality resulted in a brand personality that would reflect courteous, personal treatment, and personable sharing of wisdom obtained through dedicated practice. The challenge behind expressing this personality was its extreme moderation; the walking of a middle path, which is easy to stray from, and risks quickly becoming boring.
This needed to be backed up with personal engagements and relationships with the owners, who would each bring their own dynamic personality as a unique blend of flavour to the coffee pot. As one measure of incorporating the baristas as the personalities of the cafe, North brought up the idea of using Japanese Hanko stamps as part of their loyalty program, with customers able to collect the personal seal of the baristas they develop a relationship with over time.
The challenge with production was one of urgency versus cost. Rent would start accruing for North soon after the brand collaterals were completed, but cost-efficient packaging had to come from China-based vendors. We suggested a compromise, producing a small amount of collateral locally in Qatar to supply their initial operations while waiting for the bigger packaging order from China to be fulfilled.
In short, North now has a complete set of collateral and store specifications, designed around the personality of the business. A brand that represents their personalities and vision well, complemented with the space to allow ample opportunities for customers to interact with the baristas, covering the brand’s shortcomings. The greatest takeaway of this engagement for North was clarity, giving them confidence and a better idea of their business’s roadmap towards growth.
