Incycle cups microGREEN

Sierra Media Client Project Case Study
The Client
InCycle Cups by MicroGREEN If you haven’t heard of InCycle Cups, rest assured you will hear plenty in
the coming years – they’ve been growing by leaps and bounds since we
first began working with them. InCycle makes an eco-friendly, 100%
recyclable, single-use cup, and they make it out of old water bottles. This is
one of those mold-breaking products that crosses a lot of demographic
boundaries, which means they have a lot of bases to cover with their
marketing.
InCycle has really embraced video as part of this and has been exploring
video’s potential in a few different ways. The video library on their website
runs the gamut between high-value, professionally produced pieces, and
house-made videos using inexpensive, online tools like videoscribe.
Combining these two practices makes for a great variety in their collection,
as well as allowing them to get a lot of bang for their marketing buck.
The Goal
When we first met with InCycle, they were still focusing on the end-user for
their marketing efforts. Since then, they’ve shifted their focus higher, to
airlines and coffee empires, as well as other large volume purchasers.
While the simple benefit of an eco-friendly, cost-efficient cup is a great
selling point for anyone, anywhere, they decided it was time to branch out
with their messaging
The Strategy
InCycle saw their next step being a case-study showing their cups in a
restaurant environment. We have quite a bit of experience with case
studies (and, of course, we’re a joy to work with), so they came to us.
Through our project meeting, it became clear that InCycle didn’t want a
standard, run-of-the-mill case study. As it was pitched to us, they wanted to
create something of a love-letter to one of their early customers – a local
micro-brewery called Ellersick Ales.
Although they had much larger clients, like RedHook and Alaska Airlines,
they really wanted to spotlight a local small-business who had been a part
of their early success.
So the question for us was; how could we make a “fun” case-study that
focused on a small customer but would still work over time for the
quickly growing company that is InCycle Cups?
Our solution was to make the video a relationship story – a romance, if you
will. We told the story of how the two businesses met, and how the
relationship grew.
We threw in a challenge (branded printing), because every great love-story
needs a challenge, and because that illustrates a value-adding capability of
InCycle.
Ideation
We threw in an ex (a little red cup you might know). We ended with happily
ever after. If you don’t live in our writer’s head, you might not catch the
romance vibe, but having the skeleton of a familiar plot embedded in the
script gives the finished video a working arc that feels satisfyingly complete.
As importantly, the relationship arc plays into a theme of excellent
customer service, which is a quality that appeals to large businesses and
end-users alike.
Including a nod at the end to the bright and expanding future of InCycle
helps this video work for investors as well, which we understood could be
an important bonus. It also gave us the opportunity to show a bustling
production line hard at work.
Producing
Through interviews, b-roll, and music, we’ve created a winning relationship
between the fun, upbeat world of a microbrew and the somewhat dryer
business of creating a disposable cup. InCycle wanted a fun video casestudy to thank an early customer for their business. We gave them a video
that does just that, while still working as marketing collateral for a few other
verticals as well.
We’d call that a success. Cheers!