True Love Coffee Co.
I was asked to provide copy for an emerging coffee brand with a whole lotta heart. This included a brand story, product titles, individual roast descriptions, coffee bag copy, pitches and taglines, etc. What’s more, we worked with a graphic designer to develop 1960’s era tiki-bar visual cues that were wellsprings of inspiration—think coconut cocktail mugs, Hawaiian volcanoes, retro surfer babes and cherry red sunsets. So with Donn the Beachcomber as my guide, I used verbiage that fit snugly with this art direction, while maintaining a wholesome tone to ground the brand in words and phrases as authentic as their coffee.
Enjoy!
Specialty coffee meets specialty copy.
With bright red bags it’s hard to miss True Love coffee on the shelves, and I aimed for equally bold copy to match. Moreover, it was important to create a uniformly integrated digital and social voice that represented True Love’s humble value set. And these directives paid off—they’ve secured recurrent accounts with a handful of prominent boutique coffee locales (Daydream, SQIRL LA, and Station Craft to name a few), with plenty more to come.
Having seven original roast offerings is a feat for any coffee brand, so it was a treat to furnish each one with some personality. The goal was to balance two distinct voices—creative and informational—in a way that didn’t clutter the page and confuse the reader. Playing with regular and italic type and page placement, the two voices commune in a comfortable way. See below!
It starts with a cherry, and ends with a trove of tropical flavors and spices waltzing around your mouth.
Copy comes in many tones. Whatever your needs may be, whatever story you’re itching to tell, the right tone of voice can make all the difference. See below a few examples of how an authentic coffee brand found their voice in a noisy market.
A tasty campaign that lands a punch.
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Option #1
Good coffee is a labor of love. It starts with a cherry, and ends with a trove of tropical flavors and spices waltzing around the corners of your mouth. And not to worry, what happens in between is just as exotic—our specialty beans are globally and ethically sourced (above fair trade!), roasted right here in Orange County, and handled with heaps of love. So many heaps, in fact, that our new coffee bags turned red as a punch-drunk Tahitian sunset. So sit tight—True Love Coffee has been burnin’ the midnight oil, and we are beyond thrilled to ingratiate you with a selection of roasts that have melted our tender hearts with pride. Seasonally inspired, expertly crafted, with completely original flavor profiles that keep us appreciating that labor part of love. Now go ahead, pick a favorite. Flick on the flamingo lamp. Grab your 25 year-old commemorative Tonga Hut mug from their “Try Every Cocktail Challenge” and start sipping. The slower, the better.
A word of gratitude—
To the small farms and families, to the many many hands, and to every staggering feat of engineering and care involved to fill our cups every morning—we give you our whole hearts, and are humbled knowing that we can give back to the communities that have given so much to us.
Much like Grandpa Larry’s love for daily walks, or a Weimaranar named Ruth’s love for chewing up sticks, we love coffee. True Love Coffee—always warm, sweet and kind.
Option #2
Good coffee is a labor of love. It starts with a cherry, and ends with a trove of tropical flavors and spices waltzing around your mouth. What happens in between is just as exotic—our specialty beans are sourced above fair trade, roasted locally in Orange County, and handled with love. So sit tight—True Love Coffee has been busy, and we are beyond thrilled to introduce a selection of roasts that have filled our hearts with pride. Seasonally inspired, expertly crafted, with completely original flavor profiles that keep us appreciating that labor part of love. Go for it, pick a favorite. Flick on the flamingo lamp. Grab that 25 year old mug from the Tonga Hut and start sipping. The slower, the better.
A word of gratitude—
To the small farms and families, to the many many hands, and to every staggering feat of engineering and care involved to fill our cups every morning—we give you our whole hearts, and are humbled knowing that we can give back to the communities that have given so much to us.
Much like Grandpa Larry’s love for daily walks, or a weimaranar named Ruth’s love for chewing up sticks, we love coffee. True Love Coffee—always warm, sweet and kind.
Option #3
Good coffee is a labor of love. Anyone can slap a sticker on a compostable bag, say a few buzz words about sourcing beans and claim to be in the business. But as with anything worthy of your precious time, the truth isn’t always easily seen. The good news is this—however muddled the truth may be, it eventually seeps through the paper filter and into your cup. In an effort to change this, True Love Coffee sources their beans above fair trade, roasts locally in Orange County, and delights at the fact that the many small farms and communities are taken care of along the way.
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Always warm, always sweet, always kind.
Always—warm, sweet, kind.
It’s a warm, sweet, kind sort of feeling.
Warm, sweet, and kind of blueberry-ish.
A Tahitian sunrise in your mug.
The tropical fruits get you moving, the spices get you grooving.
Brewed with tenderness.
Much like Grandpa Larry’s love for daily walks, and a weimaranar named Ruth’s love for chewing up sticks, we love coffee.
A trove of tropical flavors and spices waltzing around the corners of your mouth.
Good coffee is a labor of love.
Love handles? More like True Love handles.
Stuck in a love triangle? So are we. A True Love triangle.
Don’t get stuck in a love triangle. Get stuck in a True Love triangle—it’s warm, sweet, and kind.
Get stuck in a True Love triangle.
Seasonaly inspired, expertly crafted, with completely original flavor profiles.
Red as a punch drunk Tahitian sunrise.
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Love is a mystery. No, we’re not the first to say it, and certainly not the last. True love, then, is a mind melter. We’ll admit that we don’t know much about either, but we do know that there’s a difference between the two. Love is a wonderful thing. Love is many things, and many things is a lot of things. But here’s the difference—true love, you see, is a rare thing. A once-in-a-lifetime, unshakable passion with a pulse. The kind that when you find it, you’re hit square in the jaw. Dizzy. Delirious. The real stuff. Distilled to its aminos, true love is warm. It’s sweet. And it’s kind. So you cling to it. And you should. Not in desperation, but in complete weak in the knees capitulation to its awesomeness. And after all, life just wouldn’t be the same without it.
True love isn’t necessarily a romantic thing, either. You can truly love the game of baseball, or the exotic sounds of Les Baxter. Or even your Weimaraner named Ruth. Allow us to go one step further and offer up that true love inspires action. When you truly love something, it’s like a spark plug to your heart. You feel compelled to do something about it. Action. Even if that action is simply reveling awestruck at its cathedral-size chambers.
So standing on our soapbox, we truly love coffee. And we humbly invite you to witness that rare thing that put a spark in our hearts. You may say, “That’s just caffeine, Steve,” and you know what? You may be right. But coffee is our true love, because we’re restlessly inspired to act upon it. And now, ready or not, we are beyond excited to share this painstaking love with whomever may accept it. So grab your favorite diner mug and allow us to introduce you to the True Love Coffee Co.
Always—warm, sweet, and kind.