Ueshima Coffee Company
How Ueshima disrupted the saturated UK coffee market
Ueshima Coffee Company
How Ueshima disrupted the saturated UK coffee market
In a category dominated by long-standing Italian traditions and modern British lifestyle brands, we helped the Ueshima Coffee Company successfully establish a unique competitive edge. By creating a culture-driven brand, we transformed Japan’s pioneering coffee house into the 5th largest ground coffee brand with 48% YoY growth in the UK.
Following our original work with Ueshima in 2021, the brand achieved rapid growth to become the fastest growing coffee brand in 2022. Our latest brand refresh marks the next chapter in the 93-year-old Japanese coffee brand’s evolution, as it turns the heat up on Illy, Lavazza and Starbucks.
Ueshima’s success to date had been largely down to the packaging on the shelf – but most of their story wasn’t visible to UK consumers. If the brand was going to move to the next level, it needed to move beyond the overused origin story ‘Japan’s No.1 Coffee’ – it had to feed the curiosity of the consumer and express the ‘why’ behind Japanese coffee culture.
A new positioning – Japanese Coffee Mastery, is designed to connect with a coffee-curious audience – people with a desire to explore new flavours and approaches. The bold new look leans into Japan’s distinctive cultural intersection of meticulous craftsmanship and high-energy creativity.
Central to the refresh is a dual personality that reflects the unique spirit of Japan – a world where timeless tradition meets vibrant, disruptive innovation.
• Visual contrast: Traditional calligraphy by master artist Kashuū represents precision and heritage, while playful illustrations by Con McHugh capture modern, high-energy creativity.
• Colour palette: A refined base of neutral tones highlights the brand’s craft, punctuated by vibrant accents that reflects their restless, creative spirit.
• Verbal identity: We paired crafted and considered language with bold creativity that challenges established coffee category norms.
The refresh involved evolving Ueshima’s strategic positioning to “Japanese Coffee Mastery” and creating a dual-personality design system that blends heritage with innovation. Key changes included pairing traditional calligraphy by master artist Kashuū with playful illustrations by Con McHugh, updating the color palette with neutral tones and vibrant accents, and launching a bold, copy-driven verbal identity designed to challenge established coffee norms.
While Ueshima achieved rapid initial growth following original agency work in 2021, its success was largely limited to on-shelf retail packaging standout. To scale to the next level, the 93-year-old brand needed to move beyond the overused origin story “Japan’s No.1 Coffee” and directly feed the curiosity of the UK consumer by expressing the deeper meaning and culture behind Japanese coffee.
By shifting to a unique, culture-driven brand strategy, Ueshima successfully disrupted a highly saturated market dominated by long-standing Italian traditions and modern British lifestyle brands. The strategy transformed Japan’s pioneering coffee house into the UK’s 5th largest ground coffee brand, capturing an impressive 48% Year-over-Year (YoY) growth and making it the fastest-growing coffee brand.
The brand’s updated positioning is purposefully designed to connect with a “coffee-curious” audience. This demographic includes modern consumers who have a distinct desire to explore new flavor profiles, distinct brewing approaches, and alternative cultural coffee traditions rather than sticking to predictable mainstream options.
