Inside the making of Lavazza Tablì at Future Stores, London.
A new way of making coffee, built around an innovative tab made entirely from coffee, without the traditional capsule. New machine, new ritual, and a brilliant opportunity to create something that would make people stop, explore and experience it for themselves.
Working with Lavazza, we completely transformed Future Stores on London's Oxford Street into an immersive brand experience that brought Tablì to life. Not simply somewhere to try a coffee, but somewhere to discover a whole new way of enjoying it.
Start with the experience, not the explanation.
When you're introducing something completely new, there's a temptation to tell people everything about it. How it works, why it's different, what makes the technology clever… While all of that matters, we wanted to create an experience that made people curious enough to find out for themselves.
So, we built the visitor journey around discovery, personalisation and participation, bringing together the physical environment, digital interactions and live experience in a way that felt natural, welcoming and unmistakably Lavazza Tabli.
From the moment visitors stepped inside, they were invited into the world of Tablì. Warm copper tones, rich coffee textures, greenery, beautiful lighting and immersive digital content created a contemporary coffee environment, designed to balance the innovation of the product with the tactile nature of the product.
Make it personal.
Everyone has their favourite coffee, routine and own idea of the perfect cup, so we made that part of the experience. Alongside the physical environment, we designed and developed a purpose built digital app that sat at the heart of the visitor journey.
Through a series of interactive questions, guests explored their coffee preferences, with the app recommending their ideal Tablì blend based on their answers. The app also generated a unique code for each visitor to use at the in store Prize Vault, connecting the coffee discovery experience with another moment of fun and anticipation later in the journey.
Once they had their blend recommendation, visitors personalised their cup with specially designed stickers before heading to the serving bar, where the new Tablì machine took centre stage. Visitors didn’t just watch their coffee being made, baristas guided them through the simple process of making their own Tabli for a true hands-on product experience. They were then invited to choose from a curated menu including an exclusive Future Stores signature serve - and a boozy version every day after 4:30pm.
A little extra something.
The interactive Prize Vault gave visitors the chance to put their unique code to the test, unlocking the opportunity to instantly win 100’s of exclusive merchandise and prizes, with one big winner per day winning their very own Tablì machine. Bringing together the bespoke app, digital interactions and physical prize experience added a playful moment to the journey and another reason for visitors to get involved.
We also created a Grounds Bar, where used coffee grounds could be taken home and given a second life in visitors' gardens. And then there were all the little details, the music, the menus, the uniforms, the smell of coffee beans, the way the team welcomed guests. Individually small things, but together they brought it all together.
Bringing it all together.
Behind the finished experience was a huge amount of creative and technical thinking. Our team worked across the experience concept, spatial design, purpose-built digital app, interactive technology, manufacture, installation, and live delivery.
From developing the visitor journey and designing the physical environment to creating the software that connected different moments of the experience, producing the space and bringing everything together on site, it was a project that touched almost every part of what we do.
And that's one of the things we enjoy most about creating experiences like this, the opportunity to think about everything together, rather than as individual elements.
The future of coffee, brought to life.
For six days, Future Stores became a place to explore, personalise, play and, of course, enjoy some brilliant Lavazza Tabli coffee.
Seeing the space full of people, watching them interact with the technology, discovering their favourite blends and getting involved in the experience was a pretty special way to see months of ideas and planning come together.
We're incredibly proud to have partnered with Lavazza to bring Tablì to life. A genuinely exciting product, a brilliant creative opportunity and exactly the kind of work we love making.
