Customer experience: The Lavazza Museum, a place to be taken as an example

For a museum, creating an innovative customer experience is an essential element of success. So even though I don’t usually talk about my vacations, I absolutely have to tell you about my visit to the Lavazza Museum in Turin, Italy. When it comes to customer experience and interactivity, Lavazza has it all figured out. And when the customer experience is at its best, customer satisfaction is bound to follow.

An interactive exhibition thanks to an RFID chip

When you buy your tickets at the Lavazza Museum, you will also be given a cup. I thought I was going to use it for a tasting, but I was wrong. Underneath the mug is an RFID chip that allows you to activate different interactive devices during the visit. You just have to put it on the spaces provided to launch a video, a projection, take a picture, interact with video devices.

Placed on this table, the cup equipped with the RFID chip activates a soundtrack and an animation on a screen.

The exhibition, therefore, includes fixed parts (such as the brand’s chronology) and interactive parts triggered by the cup. Thus, the visitor can choose to compose his visit according to his interests and go deeper into certain parts by activating the different devices provided for this purpose.

Interactive devices to personalize the visit

The tour is divided into 5 rooms to the glory of Lavazza and its marketing genius. The business started in 1895 with 50 lire and has become an emblem of Italy throughout the world.  The exhibition traces the milestones in the development of the brand through some of the period’s objects and products. You can learn all about the cultivation and manufacture of coffee. Two sliding screens allow you to discover more about each step of the coffee canning and bottling process (see video below).

The second room is dedicated to the brand’s machines and presents a great prototype of a capsule machine from the 1980s. Who would have thought that the premises of a revolution in coffee consumption would be found so far back in time?

In the third room, there is a “barista” van equipped to serve the best coffee in the depths of Italy.

Complete tour of Lavazza advertising campaigns

A staircase leads the visitor to the upper floor, where the 4th room, which traces the advertising inventions of Lavazza, awaits.

We find in particular the 2 main characters of the brand: Caballero and Carmencita (invented in 1957), known by all Italians of 50 years and over.

Caballero and Carmencita, two iconic characters of the Lavazza brand created in the 1950s.

For the latter, the museum space has some pleasant surprises tinged with nostalgia. Beyond the 2 giant figures, the visitor can also have his picture taken in the middle of Caballero and Carmencita. By placing the interactive cup on the screens provided for this purpose, photos can be realized using a series of webcams. You will be able to immortalize this moment while sitting in a giant cup or a cloudy setting reminiscent of the “Lavazza in paradise” series of ads initiated in 1995.

The clouds decor will allow you to immortalize your visit as if you were an actor in the “Lavazza in Paradise” commercial.

A multi-sensory customer experience

Before entering the last room, a visual experience awaits you as well as a summary of your visit. Put your cup on the interactive screen to review your photos and visualize the interactive moments you participated in.

The 5th room is where the tasting awaits the visitor. Emidio, the barista, is waiting for you to taste the different shades of coffee. And if your visit takes place in the late afternoon, you will have the opportunity to opt for an exquisite cocktail with cold coffee and cinnamon syrup, which is splendid!

The last part of the Lavazza Museum is dedicated to tasting. The barista, Emidio, is waiting for you to appreciate the subtle differences between the different coffees.

By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab Dr. Pierre-Nicolas Schwab is the founder of IntoTheMinds. He specializes in e-commerce, retail and logistics. He is also a research fellow in the marketing department of the Free University of Brussels and acts as a coach for several startups and public organizations. He holds a PhD in Marketing, a MBA in Finance, and a MSc in Chemistry. He can be contacted by email, Linkedin or by phone (+32 486 42 79 42)