The Whole Latte Love “Wakey Wakey ™” coffee Label Art Contest has concluded with GREAT success! Many of you reading this know about the contest…but what really went into it and how did it progress? I’m here to give you a short play-by-play of the contests, yes, that’s right, contests. When we first decided to develop a new breakfast blend, the thought was, what a better way to do this than to involve EVERYONE. After all, we do take a lot of pride in developing long-lasting relationships with customers, co-workers, partners, etc. We broke down the contest into two parts: 1. Naming the new blend, and 2. Artwork for the new blend.
Naming the Blend
Most of the time in the movies or on TV, marketing meetings run late into the night with hundreds of ideas scribbled on walls, notebooks, napkins. The conference room table is covered in these ideas, half-eaten food, empty cups of coffee with a fresh pot being brewed. The people look exhausted (and if you’re a fan of the show “Mad Men” as I am, the room is filled with smoke and empty bottles of scotch). That was not how we wanted this to go.
We held a staff meeting announcing the new blend and the contest to name it. People here jumped at the opportunity, we had entries coming in by the minute (and yes, some were on napkins). It was a close finish, but the moment the judges heard the name “Wakey Wakey”, we knew we had a winner! Congratulations Milan!
Artwork for the Blend
We started the contest at the beginning of January, 2009. To allow artists enough time to create their masterpieces, we wanted to run the contest a minimum of three months. We received 25 entries within that time, but being an artist myself, I know how long it can take to develop a piece of art, so we decided to extend the deadline for entries. Some artists entered two, three, even four pieces of art, some even revised their original art and re-submitted.
When the contest ended, we reviewed the work and chose 17 finalists for the entire world to see and vote for their favorites. The first weekend voting began, we received over 1,400 votes in the first three days. After we went through and cleaned out the multiple votes (gotta follow the rules!), we were down to just under 1,000, still not bad.
Voting continued until April 17. to keep things fair (and accurate), we went through each morning and removed the multiple votes. First place switched six times during the course of the voting, finally coming down to a photo finish between the roosters drinking coffee and the coffee cityscape. At the end, when the votes were counted and the smoke had cleared…The roosters drinking coffee prevailed, but only by 1.3%! What a finish!
The winner, Steve Smock, is a 1990 graduate from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and will be featured in an upcoming article here at Whole Latte Love. I spoke with Steve and I can tell you that he is VERY excited that he won win and even more excited about his new Gaggia Classic!
It is too bad we’re not launching ten new coffees. We got some of the best work I’ve seen in a while. It’s even encouraged me to pick up my brush again. Thanks to all who entered and to all who voted for making this the most fun and exciting contest we’ve ever had.
PS - Stay tuned! We will be announcing our next contest soon and it’s sure to be even more fun.
Denton
Marketing/Communications Manager
Yesterday marked the official start of our charity poll and we've already received over 500 votes! There's $500 on the line, so be sure to vote for your favorite organization. Here at Whole Latte Love, we are pretty big fans of the three non-profits represented in the poll--Disabled American Veterans, The Nature Conservancy, and Coffee Kids--but, we'd love to hear your thoughts.
