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Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK
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Coffee wars: Flat White vs. Cappuccino
March 11, 2010
Hitwise was started in Australia, and there remains a strong Antipodean influence in our London office. The most recent manifestation of this is a fashion amongst my colleagues for flat whites – a style of coffee that, like the pavlova before it, originated in either Australia or New Zealand and, depending on your opinion, is either a less milky café latte or a weaker, colder café con leche (see this Wikipedia entry for an unintentionally amusing comparison between the drinks). And it’s not only Experian Hitwise employees that are falling victim to this latest coffee fashion: according to this article in the Evening Standard, the flat white is already challenging the cappuccino in some London coffee shops.
Our data also backs this up. As the chart below illustrates, Internet searches for “flat white” first started appearing in the UK towards the end of 2008, but have really taken off since both Starbucks and Costa launched the drink in December and January respectively, and are now neck and neck with “cappuccino”.
During the 12 weeks ending 06/03/2010, people in the UK searched for over 650 different terms containing the phrase “flat white”. Here are the top 10, which includes both Costa and Starbucks branded terms, as well as the two recipe-related terms:
1. flat white (13.58% of searches containing the term)
2. flat white coffee (6.30%)
3. costa flat white (2.23%)
4. flat white london (1.97%)
5. how to make a flat white (1.63%)
6. white flat screen tv (1.56%)
7. flat white starbucks (1.46%)
8. flat white coffee recipe (1.20%)
9. starbucks flat white (1.20%)
10. costa coffee flat white (1.03%)
Interestingly, searches for “flat white” are less prevalent in Australia and New Zealand than the UK. Presumably the reason for this is that our Aussie and Kiwi cousins are already familiar with the drink, so are less inclined to search out fo curiosity.
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Posted by Robin Goad at 10:20 AM
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In Categories Demographics | Fast moving search terms | Food | Local | Retail | Search
Comments
I imagine a proportion of the fat whites searches will be for the excellent eponymous coffee shop...
Though I do love a flat white
Posted by Kelvin Newman | March 16, 2010 07:25 PM
I don't think "white flat screen tv" is relevant there, but interesting post nonetheless.
Posted by Andrew | March 11, 2010 12:34 PM