• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, October 9, 2017

With the holidays approaching, Keurig is hoping to reenergize its sales growth by tapping James Corden’s high-energy humor and introducing product innovations. 

The late-night TV host is featured in #BrewtheLove, the brand’s first celebrity spokesperson campaign since 2014, when it introduced its Keurig 2.0 machine with a sweeps offering a coffee date with Donny Wahlberg.

In two new TV spots, “Keurig Converts” and “Strength” (below), Corden promotes the new K-Select Brewer, which has a “strong” button to brew a stronger cup on demand. 

In an early-morning visit to a neighborhood, Corden appears to ad-lib interactions with residents (not actors, according to Keurig) — many still clad in pajamas and bathrobes — as he tries to convince them to give up their drip coffee machines by brewing them individual cups made with the K-Select Brewer. (An extended video version on YouTube includes scenes used for both TV ads.)

The spots’ TV schedule includes morning shows, as well as network prime time programming and holiday events. Keurig will also run digital spots — including short videos with Corden explaining how easy it is to make a robust, high-quality cup of coffee with the new brewer — online and on its Facebook, Instagram and Twitter channels. 

Keurig and its lead creative agency, Havas New York, worked with Corden and his Fulwell 73 Production team, who co-produce “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” on the video concepts. Fulwell 73 partner and co-founder Gabe Turner directed each piece, including the campaign’s social content.

Keurig also launched a slim-line, removable reservoir brewer model call the K-Compact, available only at Walmart, over the summer, and it will be introducing other new products, partnerships and campaigns in the coming year. 

Keurig, which dominates both pods and machines in the U.S., points out that single-cup coffee drove 91% of all hot beverage growth between 2012 and 2016, according to IRI. Combined single-cup machine and coffee pod sales increased 8%, while the traditional drip coffee market was slightly down. 

However, in February 2016, Keurig Green Mountain — which went private when it was acquired for $13.9 billion in December 2015 by an investment group led by JAB Holding Company — announced that it had sold 7% fewer machines during the 2015 holiday season than it had the previous holiday season. In addition, the company reported that unit sales of its pods (which accounted for about 80% of its total sales) had declined for a second straight quarter.

While experts say that one challenge for single-serve has been an improving economy — with coffee lovers returning to some degree to their expensive habit of getting their fixes at Starbucks and other coffee cafes — the decline “was partly a problem of Keurig’s own making,” reportedThe Washington Post’s Roberto A. Ferdman at the time.

The “pricey” Keurig 2.0 machine, introduced to stem the tide of copycat products launched after key Keurig patents expired, “backfired, leading to a 22% drop in machine sales in the first three months of 2015,” Ferdman wrote. “Customers weren't thrilled, which they have communicated, sometimes angrily, in reviews on Amazon.”