Costa Coffee Launches Matcha Range with Nationwide ‘Catch-a-Matcha’ Brand Experience Tour
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With help from its rostered experience agency The Circle Agency, Costa Coffee brought matcha to the nation through a UK-wide experience campaign. Centred around a giant cup of iced matcha that doubles as a vending machine and branded plushie bag charms, the tour ran until 29 March 2026.The experience toured market squares across 10 locations, including Caerphilly, Bury St Edmunds, Carlisle, Market Harborough and Perth. Each location was selected to target consumers who likely work in metropolitan areas where matcha is readily available but struggle to find their new favourite drink at weekends.
The awareness-driven experience is open to members of the brand’s app-based loyalty programme, Costa Club; both existing members and on-the-spot sign-ups. It encourages people to play an interactive game in return for prizes: a newly launched Costa matcha plushie called Matchilda or a crocheted takeaway cosy. Plus, a £50 voucher for one lucky winner in each location and matcha samples for people passing by.
By capitalising on the recent success of Costa plushies, which became a viral sensation over Christmas, each location’s activation was teased through a social, PR and CRM campaign that features the brand new matcha-green plushie. Five-thousand especially-commissioned plushies were created for the campaign.
As Circle Agency is Costa Coffee’s rostered experience agency, Catch-a-Matcha is the first of several seasonal brand experience collaborations that will take place throughout 2026.
Costa Coffee’s Senior Marketing Manager, Brand & Equity, Charlotte Comber, said: “Thanks to having the largest coffee shop estate in the country, we can ensure that matcha is no longer solely for the privileged few. By creating an incredibly engaging activation that leans heavily into the wild success of our plushies range, Circle is playing a huge role in our mission to bring matcha to the masses.”
Circle Agency’s Account Director, Craig MacFarlane, added: “Not only is this a big piece of visual theatre, it also entails an incredibly specific location strategy. We were tasked with bringing to life the fact that Costa Coffee has the unique ability to make matcha accessible to everyone, everywhere. So we ended-up targeting smaller cities and towns, the type of places that aren’t used to receiving big brand activations. We can’t wait to see how they respond.”