Friday Thing/k: This Post Goes Well With Coffee

Hi, all.

Hope you had a good week.

Welcome to Friday Thing/k – a brand storytelling canvas where I’d like to share with you smart, creative, inspiring, engaging, cool, and innovative content marketing ideas that take my digital marketing breath away once a week.

(This post was written in the time it takes to drink two cups of coffee — latte, no sugar. Make yourself a coffee as well — I’ll wait).

Do you know why I sign each post with, “Just call me Joe?”

A short story:

When I arrived in Australia almost 11 years ago, I realized very quickly that pronouncing my name was going to be an issue.

It started only a few minutes after the passport and customs check when I went to buy a coffee. The barista asked for my name and when I answered “Yoav,” he thought I had said, “You are?”

If you try to say Yoav, you’ll hear what I mean.

So, he told me his name and asked again for mine, to which I said “Yoav.” As he became impatient and shared his name again, in that third and final attempt, I gave up and said, “Just call me Joe.”

That went well.

The only thing is that he then asked me to spell it… true story.

Therefore, Joe has been my coffee name ever since.

And I LOVE coffee — it always goes well with stories. As a kid, I remember that there was once an ad for one of the Israeli newspapers following a print strike which said something along the lines of, “Now that the journalist’s strike is over, the coffee got back its taste.”

This post is a collection of coffee thing/ks that I have picked up over the years:

The first story goes back to 2008 when free Wi-Fi was popping up in cafes all over the world and owners were debating whether they could offer free Wi-Fi and still sell coffee.

Holland-based CoffeeCompany.nl found a clever solution which I discovered on AdRants at the time.

They started promoting their daily menu through people’s WiFi menus. The café frequently changed the name of its wireless network to things like:

BuyAnotherCupYouCheapskate, HaveYouTriedCoffeeCake?, BuyaLargeLatteGetBrownieForFree.

I would bet their coffee was just as brilliant.

The second story is from 2014, when Mexican grill chain, Chipotle, launched a campaign called Cultivating Thought, in which it used their coffee cap as a medium for essays from a slew of popular writers and comedians.

Chipotle’s campaign came to my mind after discovering this story via an Outbrain recommendation about Swedish artist Cecilia Levy who gives life to old, unwanted books by turning their pages into cups, teapots, and bowls.

[The second coffee just kicked in.]

The third and final story is related to one of my favorite coffee shops in Sydney. It’s called Single Origin and it is just next to Outbrain’s office.

Sometimes when I go there in the afternoon, the hipster baristas play trans music and seem to be in a different chillax zone while they make the coffee.

This ad by British coffee brand Taylors of Harrogate may explain better than I can:

Off to make some tea.

See you next Friday.

As always, feedback is more than welcome, and needed so please leave comments below. Additionally, if you have anything/k in mind, I would love to discover it.

Just call me Joe.