How Chamberlain Coffee is ‘growing up’ with its founder

Longtime viewers of influencer Emma Chamberlain’s YouTube channel know she loves her coffee. So when talent agency UTA was looking to build its next talent-led brand five years ago, Chamberlain Coffee was something of a no-brainer.

“You have to have a product that is true to the talent for it to really cut through,” Jeumana Jaber, interim CMO and employee No. 1 at Chamberlain Coffee, who also works for UTA, told us.

Since its inception in 2019, the brand, which began selling coffee beans and drink accessories, has expanded into flavored matcha and ready-to-drink canned coffee. In the past year, Chamberlain Coffee has also branched out from its own e-commerce platform to other retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Whole Foods.

“We’re trying to get as many cans in hands as possible,” said CEO Chris Gallant, who told us that “a big chunk” of the brand’s revenue this year will come from sales of its ready-to-drink beverages.

To date, the brand’s focus has been primarily on Gen Z, Chamberlain’s primary audience, who generally prefer cold beverages like cold brew. But as Chamberlain Coffee grows its product lineup and expands into retail, the brand is aiming to appeal to a broader demographic, as well as build brand awareness outside of Chamberlain’s nearly 30 million online followers.

“A big challenge with this brand is, ‘How do we age up the brand with [Chamberlain] and with our audiences as they grow?’” Jaber said. “And in general, how do we become more relevant to millennials and Gen X, since we are going into retail?”

Sip, sip, pass

Perhaps fortunately, the brand has already done this once. Around two years ago, at the direction of Chamberlain, Jaber said the brand changed its tone of voice to be more age inclusive and “have a more elevated feel with some collections.”

“Emma was, like, ‘I don’t want to just be a brand for Gen Z,’” Jaber said. “‘I don’t want to use Gen Z language that maybe my mom, who might love the product because I told her about it, doesn’t understand.’”

Efforts to appeal to a wider consumer set are evident elsewhere in the brand’s identity. The products’ packaging and colors are intentionally demographic-agnostic, and aside from Chamberlain’s name, don’t heavily feature the creator, a decision intended to help the brand “stand on its own,” Jaber said.

That doesn’t mean Chamberlain’s touch isn’t there behind the scenes. “She has a final seal of approval, she tries every single product before it goes into market, she approves every piece of packaging, she has the final say on it all,” Jaber said. ”She has a very good sense of what’s going to work.”

When the brand decided to create matcha powder, for example, Jaber said it was based “purely on Emma’s gut” and her experience among friends; now, matcha is one of its best-selling products. Pop-up retail arrangements and a smoothie collab—Cold Brew Cookie—with upscale grocery chain Erewhon also stemmed from Chamberlain’s input, Jaber added.

Jaber attributes much of Chamberlain Coffee’s growth to word-of-mouth, which she plans to continue to leverage as the brand works to broaden its audience. One way, she said, is through sampling, which this year will be a “big priority.”

Last month, Chamberlain Coffee appeared at a pop-up event for luggage company Béis, where Jaber said they handed out more than 1,000 cans of coffee, including to some millennial women who, the brand ambassadors at the event told her, weren’t previously aware of the brand.

Stop, look, and listen

Beyond getting cans in hands, events present an opportunity for customer observation and feedback. In addition to running social surveys and quizzes, Jaber said the brand sends emails to its top-2,000 customers asking about their preferences and new products they hope to see, which can also help build brand affinity.

“We want to involve our community,” she said. “We want them to feel like they’re heard.”

That extends to Chamberlain Coffee’s Instagram and TikTok comments: “When we brought out our chai and our hot chocolate, we made sure that they were made with oat milk because that’s something that we were told time and time again on social,” Jaber said, adding that it was doubly fitting because Chamberlain doesn’t drink dairy.

The brand also collects insights on its customers through user-generated content. To Jaber, the number of views on UGC matters less than the content itself: “We’re really collecting a library and using that as a little bit of a research point of, like, ‘How are people making things? What are they mixing it with? What flavors are they putting in? Can we bring out something similar?’”

Jaber said the brand will remain focused on “listening to the consumer, analyzing the data,” and releasing new products that are authentic to the brand’s namesake—even if not everyone knows who she is.

“It’s gonna take us some time to…get the word out there so people know, ‘Hey, there’s this brand. I like what they’re doing. I don’t know who Emma Chamberlain is, but I like the coffee.” she said. “That’s totally fine with us.”