HED: Caribbean Farms traffics coffee online
DEK: The Canadian coffee co has started selling its organic Black Sunshine Haitian coffee to consumers – but they have to navigate the shady underworld of the drug trade (online) in order to get it.
by Nick Krewen
Welcome to the deep dark underbelly of…the coffee business?
In an intriguing twist, Halifax and Toronto’s Extreme Group has teamed up with Toronto digital production studio Lollipop to present a dynamic new way of buying coffee.
In order to access Caribbean Farms online-exclusive Pure Black Sunshine blend, coffee lovers have to enter the website at pureblacksunshine.com, virtually charter a flight to a mysterious island, make it past an imposing steel door and deal with a humourless gun-toting dealer who will shoot you on the spot if you rub them the wrong way.
Make the right choices, however, and once you place your order, a package of coffee resembling a brick of narcotic, with a symbol marking light (lizard), medium (scorpion) or heavy (spider) will be mailed to you in a brown envelope wrapped with clear tape.
The website, which took three months to build, includes approximately 10 minutes of content filmed from a first-person point-of-view, using a Steadicam, intuitive point and click decision making navigation and photography by Frank Hoedl.
Extreme Group creative director Shawn King tells us that Caribbean Farms, originally a wholesaler before making this first foray into retail, gave his agency permission to run with something a little dark and subversive.
‘It comes from a bean that is in demand but a little hard to get, and because of that, we kind of landed on this idea of treating it like a narcotic,’ says King. ‘So we started with the packaging, and it led to this site. This product is being treated like an online only purchase. You can only get this through a website.
‘And when the idea of the narcotic aspect came to light, we were exploring various ways to make that as an authentic experience as possible,’ King tells MiC.
King says the campaign isn’t targeted at a specific demographic.
‘ We’re aiming at the online generation of coffee drinkers – probably a younger demographic,’ he concedes. ‘ We’re aiming towards the type of consumer who is web savvy, who understands and is not thrown off anything shocking that you might see online. ‘
King says the campaign is exclusively viral at the moment .
‘We wanted to create some buzz,’ says King, who adds that there will be further work on the site, plus a launch of another more retail-friendly Caribbean Farms product in the months to come.
Caribbean Farms traffics coffee online
HED: Caribbean Farms traffics coffee online
DEK: The Canadian coffee co has started selling its organic Black Sunshine Haitian coffee to consumers - but they have to navigate the shady underworld of the drug trade (online) in order to get it.
by Nick Krewen
Welcome to the deep dark underbelly of...the coffee business?
In an intriguing twist, Halifax and Toronto's Extreme Group has teamed up with Toronto digital production studio Lollipop to present a dynamic new way of buying coffee.
In order to access Caribbean Farms online-exclusive Pure Black Sunshine blend, coffee lovers have to enter the website at pureblacksunshine.com, virtually charter a flight to a mysterious island, make it past an imposing steel door and deal with a humourless gun-toting dealer who will shoot you on the spot if you rub them the wrong way.
Make the right choices, however, and once you place your order, a package of coffee resembling a brick of narcotic, with a symbol marking light (lizard), medium (scorpion) or heavy (spider) will be mailed to you in a brown envelope wrapped with clear tape.
The website, which took three months to build, includes approximately 10 minutes of content filmed from a first-person point-of-view, using a Steadicam, intuitive point and click decision making navigation and photography by Frank Hoedl.
Extreme Group creative director Shawn King tells us that Caribbean Farms, originally a wholesaler before making this first foray into retail, gave his agency permission to run with something a little dark and subversive.
'It comes from a bean that is in demand but a little hard to get, and because of that, we kind of landed on this idea of treating it like a narcotic,' says King. 'So we started with the packaging, and it led to this site. This product is being treated like an online only purchase. You can only get this through a website.
'And when the idea of the narcotic aspect came to light, we were exploring various ways to make that as an authentic experience as possible,' King tells MiC.
King says the campaign isn't targeted at a specific demographic.
' We're aiming at the online generation of coffee drinkers - probably a younger demographic,' he concedes. ' We're aiming towards the type of consumer who is web savvy, who understands and is not thrown off anything shocking that you might see online. '
King says the campaign is exclusively viral at the moment .
'We wanted to create some buzz,' says King, who adds that there will be further work on the site, plus a launch of another more retail-friendly Caribbean Farms product in the months to come.
