Sometimes, all it takes is an email.
While working for Free People’s marketing team in 2013, Kathryn O’Connor, a frequent visitor to La Colombe’s original café in Philadelphia, reached out to the brand’s founders, Todd Carmichael and JP Iberti. O’Connor had seen the amount of PR the brand was getting, and she told them via email that she wanted to learn more about the brand’s aspirations. The message led to more conversations and, eventually, a job offer. O’Connor has now been leading La Colombe’s marketing for nearly 10 years, and she became the brand’s first-ever CMO in 2023.
“The first year has been a whirlwind,” O’Connor told us.
In the time since she joined the company, La Colombe has expanded nationwide as both a café and a CPG brand with products like its canned draft lattes. Last year, the company debuted a sweet chai canned latte, ran its second national ad campaign, and rolled out La Colombe K-Cups with the help of an investment from Keurig Dr Pepper. The biggest announcement, however, came in December, when Chobani acquired the coffee company for $900 million.
As she approaches her first year as CMO, O’Connor told us that she’s excited for the brand’s future as it brews its future plans.
Test and expand
Having begun her career in retail, O’Connor said she’s only now starting to consider herself a CPG marketer. “I’ve been in CPG for almost 10 years and I finally feel like I don’t have impostor syndrome about it anymore,” she said.
Despite the increased focus on CPG products, though, O’Connor said she doesn’t think of La Colombe as being a CPG-first brand. “The cafés will always continue to be such a big brand-builder for us and always connect through to the product,” she told us.
The cafés aren’t just a brand-builder—they’re also a testing ground. La Colombe tries out new drinks, like its oat chai latte, at its cafés before releasing them as canned drinks. “It’s the No. 1 best consumer testing ground or consumer focus group that we could possibly have,” she said.
In addition to expanding its café footprint in recent years, La Colombe has also started bringing its brand into more hospitality settings. The brand has partnered with companies like American Airlines, which serves La Colombe coffee in its Admiral Club lounges, as well as the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas.
“The Admirals Club actually has been a very surprising, successful relationship,” O’Connor said. “The amount of feedback I get from people being so happy when they find La Colombe in their airport has always been surprising, so the team is really proud of that engagement.
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In recent years, La Colombe has also embraced cause-driven partnerships, including working with the ACLU in 2020 on a voter registration drive and a special roast, Lyon, which directs a portion of its proceeds to the organization. O’Connor said her team is currently working on their strategy with the nonprofit around the election this year. Meanwhile, it’s also been experimenting with things like using AI for customer surveys on social campaigns and striking up student ambassador partnerships.
Another thing it’s working on, per O’Connor, are some “architectural touches” on La Colombe’s branding. The brand’s latte cans previously underwent a redesign in 2022; O’Connor said the forthcoming changes are designed to seamlessly tie “the heritage credibility” between its cafés and products together.
In with the old
Through all of La Colombe’s changes, expansions, and new ownership, O’Connor said the message of the brand comes back to “heritage [and] simplicity.” It also comes down to marketing a certain kind of lifestyle to consumers. While at Free People, O’Connor told us she learned a lot about aspirational marketing, which she’s aiming to implement at La Colombe through everything from storytelling and social content to activations.
“The product is constantly changing in retail every month,” she said. “So you really hone in on a lifestyle and on the people that you’re marketing to and create that aspirational lifestyle in everything you do.”
A key component of selling that at La Colombe, she said, is ensuring the coffee quality remains high, no matter the product. “Creating that thread all the way through the café experience, the product experience, and the brand experience is a really big focus,” she said.
As La Colombe enters a new phase under Chobani’s ownership, O’Connor said she anticipates positive change. “It’s going to be hugely additive to the brand visibility and awareness,” she said. “Chobani has years of experience selling into cold chain and grocery…And from the branding side, it’s really about having a like-minded sister brand now who we can draft off of.”
Another positive? “There’s lots of opportunities for cross-collaborations,” she said. In other words, don’t be surprised if you see more Chobani coffee creamers at La Colombe cafés in the future.