How people drink coffee at home has changed dramatically in recent years. The growth in Starbucks and in your local, premium coffee shop began to train consumers on the importance of quality and freshness spawning the growth of single-serve coffee at home. As the Director of Sales & Marketing for the Senseo coffee brand, John Risley’s played a vital role in the US launch and its growth becoming the established leader in the single-serve coffee segment.
John Risley, Vice President of Sales
John knew the opportunity was clear and massive but introducing a new Coffee Brand and a new way to make coffee at home had many major obstacles to overcome. Among these many challenges included consumers buying a new coffee appliance that didn’t have a large carafe, from new appliance brand, not known in the coffee category, and a new brand of coffee that may or may not be available in their local grocery store. But, my biggest challenge was getting the retail trade behind the launch to overcome so many of these obstacles,” Risley said.
The objective was to deliver omnipresent distribution of the new coffee system in both brick & mortar as well as the e-commerce channel. John led the Trade Marketing and Sales Planning strategy in collaboration with its appliance partner to target key retailers in all classes of trade and execute a co-merchandised system launch. “Our Year-1- and -2 objectives exceeded expectations, which was remarkable given the competitive pressure from other global multi-national competitors,” Risley said.
Continued growth in year 3 and beyond depended on the expansion of coffee in both breadth and depth. Consumer research confirmed that for the consumer to stay happy with the Senseo brand they needed to see it in their local store and needed to find a variety blends. By developing a category management vision, John was able to deliver on his coffee distribution goals and far exceed the company’s revenue goals and expectations.
Watch full video interview below.
Contact John Risley via LinkedIn or his Career WebFolio.
Fred Coon, CEO
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