Coffee Market - The art of using ESG to reach people -

ESG post volume

It represents the percentage of content posted online by a given company's stakeholders and oriented to ESG topics as a proportion of that company's total content. Among the three companies:

- Lavazza: 8.63%

- Nespresso: 10.6%

- Illy: 17.44%

Illy leads the way with the highest proportion of ESG-oriented content, achieving 17.44% of their total posts. Nespresso follows with 10.6%, while Lavazza lags behind with 8.63%. This suggests that proportionally, Illy ESG efforts is being more talked about online, potentially positioning itself as a more ESG-conscious brand. Stakeholders may associate Illy with more sustainability-oriented content.

ESG engagement

It measures the percentage of total engagement (likes, shares, comments) generated by ESG posts. The performance here tells a different story:

- Lavazza: 7.23%

- Nespresso: 2.02%

- Illy: 1.72%

Despite the lowest percentage of ESG posts, Lavazza achieves the highest ESG engagement with 7.23%. In contrast, Illy, despite its strong emphasis on ESG content, has the lowest engagement with just 1.72%. Nespresso falls between the two with 2.02%. This disparity suggests that while Lavazza receive proportionally less posts on ESG content it engages way more their stakeholders, resonating more with its audience, resulting in higher engagement.

ESG reach

It indicates the percentage of total reach (visibility) generated by ESG posts online:

- Lavazza: 24.72 %

- Nespresso: 17.4 %

- Illy: 21.26 %

Lavazza again leads this category with an ESG reach of 24.72%, followed by Illy at 21.26% and Nespresso at 17.4%. This data shows that Lavazza's ESG content not only engages more, but also reaches a greater proportion of its audience than its competitors.

All companies achieve better ESG reach than the volume of posts dedicated to ESG. This shows that in this sector, ESG is strategic for reaching stakeholders. Key topics need to be identified, and spontaneous engagement encouraged by the right campaign.

Comparing these metrics reveals interesting dynamics between post volume, reach, and engagement:

Although Lavazza posts the least amount of ESG content, it achieves the highest reach and engagement. This suggests that Lavazza's content is more effective in driving engagement, but they are not quantity oriented. They are more effective in capturing audience attention and interaction through ESG. We’ll see later how they achieve this.

Implications for the Coffee Sector

The analysis highlights a key trend in the coffee sector: while ESG content has the potential to reach a significant portion of the audience, it struggles to generate corresponding levels of engagement. This suggests that while consumers are aware of ESG efforts, they may not be as motivated to interact with the content, we’ll see the reason behind this in the next part.

In the coffee sector, the high reach of ESG messages is a positive indicator that consumers are interested in sustainable development and ethical practices. However, low engagement rates mean that brands need to rethink their ESG communication campaigns. To drive engagement, companies may need to create entertaining campaigns, making their ESG efforts more understandable and achievable for consumers.

Compared to other sectors, the coffee industry seems to be more successful in terms of visibility (reach) of ESG messages. However, the challenge remains to translate this visibility into meaningful engagement, which could strengthen the impact of their sustainability initiatives and consolidate consumer loyalty.

CLOSE LOOK ON ILLY

In the previous analysis, Illy was identified as the coffee brand with the lowest ESG engagement (1.73% of total engagement) despite the highest proportion of ESG posts. To understand the underlying reasons for this situation, we'll take a closer look at the data, focusing on the distribution of posts and engagement across different platforms. This analysis will highlight areas where Illy's ESG content is underperforming and identify opportunities for improvement.

Analysis of Illy's ESG engagement:

The vast majority of Illy’s ESG posts are concentrated on the Media (73.8%) and Website (17.9%) platforms. However, these platforms have an extremely low engagement rate per post, with Media generating 0.05 engagement per post and Website 0.3 engagement per posts.

Looking at all posts, we can clearly see a big difference, with media accounting for just 32.1%, therefore, 41.7 points less. ESG seems to be a topic of interest only to the media, which generates a very low rate of engagement.

Underutilization of high-engagement platforms is an issue, in contrast, platforms such as Instagram and Facebook have significantly higher rates of engagement per post, at 318 and 68 respectively, but they only account for 2.4% and 2.3% of all ESG content. Of all posts, they represent 17.2% and 27% respectively, which explains the overall low engagement when it comes to ESG content. This suggests a missed opportunity, as these platforms have proved far more effective at engaging users.

However, what's really interesting is the highest engagement on Instagram and Facebook when posts are ESG: 318 and 68, whereas for all posts, engagement is 105 and 17.5 respectively.

This insightful contrast highlights a key point: despite the proven ability of Instagram and Facebook to generate high engagement, Illy's ESG content is not sufficiently present on these platforms. This under-presence on high-performing platforms is probably a major factor contributing to low overall ESG engagement. The data suggests that when sustainability-focused posts are published on Instagram and Facebook, they are highly effective, with engagement rates triple those of non-ESG content.

Illy's low ESG engagement can largely be attributed to over-reliance on platforms that don't generate high user interaction. By redistributing its content strategy to focus more on high-engagement platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and X, Illy has the potential to significantly improve its ESG engagement, making its sustainability efforts more impactful for its audience. Creating engaging campaigns on these social media platforms is key to drive spontaneous engagement.

We did find similar percentages for the other brands. ESG content in the coffee sector is largely discussed on low engaging platforms, but ESG might be more engaging on the right platforms than non ESG posts.

Let’s see an example of an engaging campaign that drives spontaneous interaction.

Lavazza has teamed up with Arsenal Football club for the “LearnToDream” project as part of its “Blend for Better” campaign. The collaboration was designed to promote sustainability and raise awareness of social responsibility, in line with Lavazza and Arsenal's commitment to these values.

- The partnership focused on promoting sustainability within the football community. Lavazza, through its "Blend for Better" campaign, underlined its commitment to ethical coffee sourcing, environmental conservation and support for coffee-growing communities.

- Arsenal and Lavazza worked together to highlight these initiatives to the club's supporters, using the platform of one of the world's most famous football clubs to reach a wider audience.

- As part of the collaboration, Lavazza took advantage of Arsenal's high profile to raise awareness of sustainable development practices among supporters, including encouraging the use of sustainable coffee and supporting Lavazza's wider environmental stewardship and social impact objectives.

- Various promotional activities, both online and on match days at Emirates Stadium, formed part of this effort, encouraging fans to engage with the "Blend for Better" message.

This collaboration between Lavazza and Arsenal has raised awareness on the "Blend for Better" campaign. By leveraging Arsenal's huge fan base and global reach, Lavazza has been able to amplify its sustainability message and reinforce its brand values through engagement.

It's a tremendous win for the campaign, driving online engagement up on ESG.

It explains why their percentage of ESG engagement on total engagement is way higher than their competitors on the period with more than 5 points compared to the second brand (7.23% - 2.02%).

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