Coffeehouse Case Study

Brewing up Music Sales

Situation: A fast-growing worldwide coffee retailer satisfies coffee aficionados with its wide variety of beans, fresh brewed coffees and teas, pastries, and accessories -- all in a fun, comfortable retail experience. As natural extension to its brand, the company wanted to extend the instore experience with music entertainment.

Challenge: The company's objective was to provide customers with a fun and engaging way to discover, experience and purchase music content consistent with its environmentally conscious brand. Wanting to keep their shelves stocked with coffee, not jewel cases, the company searched for a digital media solution that would allow customers to create their own custom mixes or to select from thousands of albums.

Solution: They initially selected a solution from a large hardware vendor, only to discover the system did not perform at a level that met the company's high standards - the system uptime was not reliable and needed continual maintenance and support. Clearly taking baristas away from their jobs to troubleshoot or reboot the system wasn't the answer. Their initial solution demonstrated that there was strong customer demand - the company was clear that their idea of extending brand with digital music was viable. They began interviewing alternative vendors to find a solution that would better fulfill their strategy.

The company made the switch to MOD Systems in 2005. Now with several coffeehouses with the MOD solution, customer can sample new music, burn CD compilations or full albums, complete with jewel cases and specially printed CDs. And their baristas can keep pulling shots.

Results: Purpose-built from the ground up for digital asset distribution, the MOD System's architecture delivered a viable, high value solution. Now that the solution is solidly in place, the coffee company continues to enhance their content library and user experience.

Today, the company reports much success with strong customer dedication to the ever-popular media bar. MOD Systems high reliability architecture and flexible design are reliably delivering music to coffee lovers, reinforcing brand, and providing an additional stream of revenue. It's clear the combination of MOD Systems and coffee are "hear" to stay.