EDITION #3
Front view of Costa Coffee boutique highlighting brand experience
🧵 Inside This Edition:
The Costa $5B Coffee Play: Why Coca-Cola Walked Away
Brand Discipline: Knowing What to Quit
The Underrated Power of Saying No
Your Move: 3 Strategic Brand Actions You Can Apply Today
In 2019, Coca-Cola acquired Costa Coffee for $5.1 billion, aiming to break into the café culture game and rival Starbucks.
Now, in 2025, they’re preparing to sell it, at nearly half that value. Failure? Not at all.
This is a masterclass in brand discipline.
1. The Billion-Dollar Moves We’re Decoding Today:
Coca-Cola (Costa Coffee exit)
The deal shocked Wall Street. Why would the world’s most iconic beverage brand walk away from one of the fastest-growing coffee chains?
Because Coca-Cola knows something most founders, CEOs, and even billion-dollar companies forget:
👉 Your brand wins when you protect clarity, not when you chase everything.
2. What They Did
Coca-Cola’s DNA has always been about scale, not stores.
Coca-Cola = beverages in every corner of the globe.
Costa Coffee = a café retail business requiring a completely different playbook.
By exiting Costa, Coca-Cola is:
Doubling down on core strengths (drinks, distribution, global brand power).
Avoiding the “brand stretch trap” where chasing too much weakens the story.
Showing that even at the top, focus beats expansion.
(Source: Financial Times | BBC Business)
Coca-Cola drinks showcasing global branding and product design
3. Why It Works (The Strategy)
This wasn’t about failure. It was about focus.
Coca-Cola realised:
Competing with Starbucks required a cultural and retail mindset, not just global distribution.
Costa didn’t expand fast enough outside the UK to justify the investment.
Meanwhile, Coke’s ready-to-drink coffee beverages (like Costa RTD and Dunkin collabs) are growing at double digits.
Lesson? Sometimes the smartest billion-dollar move is walking away before distraction kills dominance.
(Source: Reuters, Tomorrow Investor)
4. 5C™ Brand Breakdown
Clarity: Coca-Cola = beverages at scale. That story stays unblurred.
Consistency: Walking away keeps Coke’s identity intact, not muddied with retail.
Creativity: Instead of cafés, Coke innovates through ready-to-drink formats and partnerships.
Collaboration: Coca-Cola knows collaboration (with Dunkin, Monster, Costa RTD) is smarter than ownership.
Community: Audiences trust brands that know who they are. This move reinforces Coca-Cola’s authenticity.
📊 The Data Drop
$5.1B: Coca-Cola’s Costa Coffee acquisition in 2019.
$3B–$3.5B: Estimated resale valuation in 2025 (FT, Reuters).
70%: Costa Coffee’s revenue still comes from the UK, limiting global scalability (Statista, 2024).
$13B: Global ready-to-drink coffee market value in 2025, Coca-Cola is betting here, not in cafés (Euromonitor).
+11% YoY growth in Coke’s non-soda beverage category (2025 earnings report).
(Source: Statista | Euromonitor | Business Standard | The Guardian | Sky News | Financial Time)
Decoded Power Moves
Know When to Quit: Discipline is more powerful than blind persistence.
Protect Your Core: Don’t let side projects blur your main brand story.
Leverage Partners, Don’t Own Everything: In today’s economy, collaboration often beats acquisition.
Make Losses Lessons: Walking away isn’t weakness, it’s brand self-preservation.
Focus on Cultural Fit: Scale only what aligns with your DNA.
5. Your Takeaway
Brand lesson for entrepreneurs:
You don’t have to chase every opportunity. You need to choose the ones that reinforce who you are.
Coca-Cola just taught us that quitting fast can be the ultimate billion-dollar brand move.
Action step: Audit your current projects. Which ones blur your brand clarity? Cut them. Double down on what makes you unstoppable.
Brand Tools Used: Strategic clarity, exit discipline, category focus, partner leverage, investor signalling.
Quote of the Week
“Sometimes the bravest act of leadership is saying: This isn’t us.”I’ll be decoding more billion-dollar brand moves every week.
👉 Subscribe to Decoded: Billion-Dollar Brand Moves™ if you’re a bold entrepreneur who wants to learn how billion-dollar brands think and act.
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