It took a trip to Costa Rica for the folks at Holmes & Lee Advertising Design & Interactive to really understand what goes into a cup of joe.

In late January of this year, CD Peter Holmes and VP, group account director Rob Nadler, were on a coffee farm in Costa Rica, picking beans that would ultimately become Second Cup coffee. From planting to processing to shipment, the duo got an exhaustive understanding of their client’s product.

Prior to the Costa Rican excursion, Nadler recalls that at a Second Cup convention, a franchisee had said that after experiencing the trip themselves, they would never look at a coffee bean the same way again.

‘I thought that was inspiring but I didn’t know what it meant until I was there and understood for myself,’ says Nadler. ‘You see the amount of work that goes into it – the development, the skill, the luck with the weather. You can see how even the most perfect bean has 15 to 20 places where things can go wrong on the way to your cup. It’s amazing and you develop a hell of a respect for the industry.’

It’s this hands-on approach, as well as a mutual passion for the brand that colours the working relationship between Holmes & Lee and Second Cup. The agency won the account three years ago after pitching the ‘Second Cup. First Thing’ positioning to the company’s director of marketing Mike Arseneault, an ex-ad guy himself.

But it wasn’t just advertising that won Holmes & Lee the pitch; then, as now, the agency presented itself as the company’s communications partner, and today, the shop provides Second Cup promotions, Web design and CRM initiatives, along with signage and package design, most of which was previously farmed out to other agencies. Customers can even learn about the origins of Second Cup coffee, as images from Costa Rica and the back story on the bean itself can be found on the company’s Web site and in-store communications.

‘It’s all about managing contact, so every single way that the customer can touch us, we want to own it, and it has to come from one place,’ says John Lee, president of Holmes & Lee. ‘With a client like Arseneault, who understands how communications has to work, it makes it a lot easier because he gets the orchestrated campaign and he gets that every opportunity to speak to consumers is an opportunity to sell.’

Arseneault says customers may not have viewed Second Cup as a player on the café scene a few years ago, but the company now leads the specialty-coffee category in Canada and in the last three years, has achieved anywhere from 3% to 6% same-store sales increases.

‘[Holmes & Lee are] still exceeding our expectations,’ he says. ‘Going into the agency review, they were the underdog, but they, of all the agencies, best understood the essence of the brand. They have gone above and beyond to make sure that the people who work on the business understand the business.’

One such example is how, in January, Holmes & Lee account executive Cheryl McKenzie attended the Second Cup Coffee College for one week, learning the ins and outs of running a franchise operation. She then spent a few days behind the counter at a Second Cup store, whipping up lattes as a barista and dealing with customers as a coffee agent. ‘These are things we do for the sole purpose of learning,’ says Nadler. ‘[Cheryl] got to learn as a product specialist and a customer specialist what the business is all about.’

That personal educational experience on the part of McKenzie also gave Holmes & Lee insight into the franchisee’s perspective – an important target for Second Cup.

‘The marketing focus at Second Cup over the last few years has been about re-engaging our customers and our franchisees,’ says Arseneault. ‘I think we’ve done that successfully in terms of increased enthusiasm and participation from franchisees.’

To that end, Holmes & Lee created the 200+ page ‘Local Café Marketing’ handbook as a reference tool for café managers in the company’s 389 franchise locations. The extensive guide details advice on co-promotions, as well as programs that managers can put in place to attract more customers at certain times of the day.

Just this past year, the agency also created a visual merchandising program for the stores. ‘We offer that to help [the franchisees] control how they present the messages in-store – be they brand messages or promotional messages,’ says Lee.

‘That’s not something that ad agencies generally get a shot at, but we felt that it was a necessary step to take. [So] regardless of the store you go into across the country, you get a sense of standardization and organization of the messaging.’

Currently, Second Cup is undergoing rapid expansion, both in Canada and internationally, with locations in Dubai and Kuwait. The communications work from Canada is being rolled out to those international markets.

Arseneault says the close – and honest – relationship with Holmes & Lee has helped drive success. ‘If you make an agency a partner in your business, they’re more likely to take ownership of it. With ownership comes giving them responsibility and also making them accountable. It’s about challenging each other, and saying, ‘this isn’t good enough’ or ‘we didn’t do our best there and we can improve it.”

This is the third in a five-part Strategy series examining client/agency relationships. In subsequent issues we’ll continue to look at specific models to find out how healthy relationships are formed, and how they affect the ultimate success of the combined marketing effort.