Senseo: international name for product brand

Coffee company Douwe Egberts and Philips decided to jointly develop and market a coffee making system to deliver fresh, individual doses of coffee quickly whilst tasting great and ensuring the coffee that comes out retains a creamy upper layer. The result, Senseo, has gone on to become a global icon in this market and a huge commercial success.

assignment
At first, DE only assigned Globrands to develop the international name for the coffee bags, which resulted in the very descriptive and easy to understand term ‘coffee pad’.

At a later date, Globrands was engaged to develop the name for the whole concept.

Although ease of use and the creamy taste were seen as essential attributes of the concept, Globrands recommended that these values were considered too functional to use as a base for a brand name ─ our belief being that this brand should be able to stand alone and possibly contain a multitude of underlying elements.

result
The name that eventually met all juridical, linguistic and conceptual criteria, was ‘Senseo’. It sounds Italian, but for everyone in the world it is easy to pronounce and remember. It references to feeling, tasting and smelling. In this context, the simple form and the ‘-eo’ suffix create a feeling of individuality.

The word ‘Crema’ was initially added to give an immediate impression of the primary benefits of the new concept. It was then to be excluded as soon as the name Senseo was established enough to speak for itself.

Senseo has become an international cultural icon and a huge commercial success.