• by Larissa Faw , March 8, 2016

Café de Colombia, the coffee growers organization best known for its spokesperson Juan Valdez and his mule Conchita, has appointed Rokkan as its creative agency of record after a review.  

Rokkan’s duties will include global strategic and creative development of messaging aimed at Millennial and Generation Y coffee drinkers.  The shop will lead all campaign development, digital, social, and media planning, according to the agency. The first work under this partnership will debut later this year. 

Café de Colombia is the public-facing arm of the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC), which promotes Colombian coffee globally and represents more than 500,000 producers, most of which are small family-owned farms. 

Culturally, Café de Colombia and the FNC are best known for Juan Valdez, a fictional character first introduced in 1958. Rokkan won't comment on its upcoming creative direction, but says it is likely to continue to use Valdez. 

"There’s a lot of different ways to tell the Cafe de Colombia story and we won’t be ruling out any possibilities," says Brian Carley, CCO, Rokkan. "Research has shown that coffee fans are deeply interested in connecting to the story behind their favorite morning-pick-me-up, and this is something that Café de Colombia has in spades with Juan Valdez and the country’s rich coffee growing history.”