Brave Beats Basic – Café Communications

Café Communications had an identity crisis – after the turbulence of the Covid years, having experienced the biggest fluctuation of its history, the agency struggled to find its own position. Especially, as this had an unintentional parallel with Café’s slogan: “Change inspires.”

Not trendy enough as some other agencies, but not your everyday “everyman’s agency”. Multiple efforts to reposition the agency have failed, even though the push was certainly there from the employee side as well, who wanted to work for an agency they could be proud of.

So I wrote up a manifesto: the BAR Manifesto. BAR wasn’t just a cheeky play on Café-Bar, but also a signal to raise the bar. To be Brave And Ready – BAR for short.

The Brave And Ready idea stuck, as it resonated with employees and leadership as well. Leading the strategy division into being an “innovation hub”, we started a monthly BAR Report webinar series, that would bring colleagues and clients up to speed with news from our field, new technologies, cool campaigns. Educative content, presented in an easy to digest, curiosity picquing style.

This had a noticable positive effect on how clients started to be more open to the more out-of-the-box ideas and how even the most conservative colleagues began to embrace new technologies, such as genAI.

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With BAR’s success, the agency decided to wear this message on its sleeve - solving the long-standing positioning problem. We built Café’s new positioning with these ideas in mind.

But we needed a catchy motto to go with it, one that wouldn’t just look cool on a hoodie, but also defines a path forward for the agency.

I’ve come up with an axiom. A truth any other agency could say. But they don’t. We do. And we own it:

Brave Beats Basic.

This also led the brand refresh, crafted by the in-house creatives.