Black Poetry partners OPEN to shape carbonated coffee brand in India

MUMBAI: Coffee is getting a little more bubbly. Premium coffee brand Black Poetry has partnered with independent brand design and transformation consultancy OPEN Strategy & Design to build the strategic and creative foundation for its entry into India’s emerging carbonated coffee category.

The partnership comes as Black Poetry looks to introduce a format that sits somewhere between the familiarity of coffee and the fizz of a carbonated drink. That left the brand with a problem: how do you sell something consumers may not have a category for yet?

Rather than borrow the visual language of speciality coffee or conventional ready-to-drink beverages, OPEN has built the brand around the idea of ‘Coffee, Reimagined’, positioning carbonated coffee as a deliberate break from convention while retaining the craft associated with coffee.

At the centre of the creative approach is ‘beautiful vandalism’, a philosophy that embraces irreverence in a category traditionally associated with seriousness and ritual. The idea draws parallels with cultural movements such as jazz, hip-hop, street food and contemporary art, where challenging established conventions helped create something new.

For a product entering an unfamiliar category, the can becomes the first point of contact with consumers. OPEN has therefore treated the packaging as more than a container, designing it as a communication medium intended to stand out on crowded retail shelves, trigger curiosity and start conversations.

As part of the engagement, OPEN developed Black Poetry’s brand positioning, packaging design, visual identity system and communication framework, creating a distinctive identity for the carbonated coffee proposition.

Rahul Goel, Founder of Black Poetry, said the brand needed more than packaging as it entered the sparkling coffee space, adding that OPEN pushed the team to be bolder and helped capture the intended spirit through the ‘beautiful vandalism’ idea.

Asparsh Sinha, Managing Partner at OPEN Strategy & Design, said emerging categories rarely succeed by simply borrowing the language of established ones. He added that the can was treated as the brand’s “most powerful media channel” and the first opportunity to stop consumers, spark conversation and introduce them to a new coffee experience.

For Black Poetry, the challenge now is to make the unusual feel familiar. By giving carbonated coffee a visual identity that deliberately breaks from conventional coffee cues, the brand is looking to create its own space rather than squeeze into an existing one.