Cafés Aitona Brand repositioning.
50 years keeping a dream awake.
With more hospitality clients than Nespresso, Fortaleza, Baqué or anyone else, Cafés Aitona is the leading brand in our territory. A family business that has spent 50 years betting on quality in product and service, a combination as perfect as the best Arabica coffee with a touch of milk. Aitona is a perfect reflection of our culture of work and commitment. And of that very Gipuzkoan character that puts doing before telling.
Coinciding with the 50th anniversary and generational changes within the company, the brand committed to a repositioning and activation strategy.
A land that is different not because of where it is, but because of how we, its people, are. Devoted to chasing our dreams with the capacity for work and the ambition for knowledge as our tools. Aitona is Gipuzkoa and Gipuzkoa is like an aitona. A physical and emotional territory unites us.
The first step was connecting with the internal audiences. Our clients, the bars and restaurants. In Gipuzkoa, hospitality is above all a gastronomic space, from croquetas and tortillas to the most sophisticated dishes. And behind this space there are people who have spent their whole lives in anonymity. Much has been said about the Basque matriarchy. But recognition has been rare. Aitona decided to take on this territory. And coinciding with Mother’s Day, we created a tribute to all the pioneering women of Basque gastronomy who worked in the shadows. The mothers and amonas of the owners of today’s brilliant bars and restaurants.
The action consisted of changing the brand’s name. From Aitona, to Amona. Without an amona there is no aitona. A tribute to the women who laid the foundations of what we are today, in the form of a documentary, print, press, PR and a mailing to our network in which we personalized a coffee package with the image and name of each establishment’s amona. (See the “Amona” case).
Then we used the brand’s 50th anniversary to build on its differentiating fact and its positioning. We created a narrative around the idea that what binds us to our community is not a coffee. But a way of being and doing. One that tastes good. And one we have been committed to for 50 years.
And to put it on social media, we decided to turn the brand’s most authentic ambassadors into the protagonists. The Cafés Aitona Curling team, which also happens to be the core of the Spanish national curling team. Yes, curling. The Basque miracle sport. With only 50 federated athletes, and no ice rink to train on, world runners-up. Proof that there are no small dreams if we stay true to our way of being and doing. So we ended up telling the story of the Basque curling miracle in a 12-minute documentary, shot between Aberdeen (Scotland), Paris, Amsterdam, Jaca and Donostia. Unpaid presence in national sports media and a piece of work with everlasting value.
Then the pandemic arrived and, with every bar closed — that is, the company on the verge of bankruptcy — we chose to believe we would come through it. And meanwhile, a brand like Aitona not only could, but had to, pay tribute to those most threatened by that virus: the aitonas, the grandfathers. So we gave up the logo to carry the names of all the Aitonas and Amonas as a show of support. Coffee, even at a distance, was once again the bastion for holding on and keeping hope alive.
An organic social media action that strengthened the bond with its community.
Most of the time we measure our work, or have it measured, by short-term results. And every now and then, things happen that make you revisit the value of a result. A year after the pandemic, Cafés Aitona caught the attention of a leading multi-regional coffee group and received a purchase offer that the family accepted, to create new possibilities and explore a future that is, if possible, even more awake.
