Marketing can’t make up for a bad product strategy and Keurig is finding that out that hard way. The single serve coffee maker, owned by Green Mountain, has stumbled badly with the introduction of its latest coffee maker and consumers are taking notice.The single serve coffee market is exploding led by Keurig but the marketing environment is getting hostile. First, the owner of the single serve machines said that “he wished he hadn’t invented the machine” because of the potential damage to the environment from used Kcups. Then Keurig decided to integrate a DRM system into new coffee machines so consumers had to use Green Mountain approved Kcups this ensuring royalties and finally a number of viral videos have been becoming more popular about the damage to the environment from using plastic cups. Keurig’s response has been to say that they will respond but not before 2020? Ha?
It didn’t take long for enterprising vendors to sell a way to get around the DRM chip so consumers could use whatever brand of Kcups they wanted but the issues to the brand could be damaging long term. Keurig has announced a single serve soda machine that’s coming, but consumers are turning off of soda and this is not going to save the brand.
Keurig should have focused on product improvements that make a better cup of coffee as coffee purists think their machines make a really bad cup of coffee. Indeed, one company is marketing a Kcup machine that they say makes a better cup of coffee thru a redesign of the water nozzle. In addition Keurig should have developed and implemented an environmentally friendly Kcup sooner than 2020. Finally the quality of Keurig 2.0 is not that good according to reviews on Costco.com. This is also a huge warning light.
So far Keurig has announced a new logo for their Kcups. Kind of like going on a picnic while your home is burning.
