The Unpredictability of The Flat White!

Flat White

The future of marketing is personalisation. Personalisation involves using Big Data to tailor promotions to consumers on a 1:1 (individual) basis.

Je Suis Personality is a creative personalisation marketing business, established in Dublin, with the objective to use actionable consumer insights, based upon end-user’s personality traits, to tailor future (individualised) promotions back to them with greater relevancy and precision.

Less Spam!
For the uninitiated, our flagship project, Personal-a-Teas, uses a fun self-discovery platform to learn about our end-users. By creating their Personal-a-Teas Selfie, our end-users can discover if their personality is like a Cappuccino, Latte, Earl Grey Tea. Our platform also provides, our end-users with the opportunity to win prizes and avail of guaranteed treats at our client cafes.
Goodbye Loyalty Cards!

Around the Personal-a-Teas Selfie Generator, we are building the Personal-a-Teas Café Community, and bringing our unique brand of rewarding personalisation to Dublin’s thriving Café Culture.

Flat White

‘Create your Selfie’
‘Show your Selfie’!
‘Get Treats’!

Flat White

Personal-a-Teas Selfies are being created with regularity and the levels of interaction with our fun self-discovery concept are very encouraging. For personalisation to work, it needs to be embraced by the mass population.

[An interesting observation from Personal-a-Teas shows us that our end-users are more than happy to consider themselves, ‘stubborn’. It’s as though being stubborn is a Personal-a-Teas badge of honour!]

Create your Personal-a-Teas Selfie here!

Over recent months, it has been brought to our attention, (with more frequency), that our Selfie Generator illustrations, though fabulous, are designed along stereotypical lines. I can assure you, this was not a preordained strategy, simply the creativity brought to the table by our esteemed illustrators. And we are delighted with them.

However, perhaps there is a section of our society that would be more inclined to create their Personal-a-Teas Selfie, if the selfies themselves were a little less… predictable?

It appeared there was a gap in our illustrative armoury!

Coincidently, in recent months we started to work with two Dublin based creatives, Jen and Lica.

We first met whilst ‘entrepreneurial networking’. Jen and Lica represent contemporary Irish society to a certain extent, and they bring this to the fore through their unique brand of illustrations. However, their illustrations are also ‘#somuchmore’ than a contemporary societal statement.

Their artworks are so different to what has become ‘fare’ for Personal-a-Teas’ illustrations. These illustrations are ‘perceived’ rule-breakers and boundary-pushers. They illicit thought, even, prompt discussion amongst friends. They are certainly not stereotypical. Like the closing track on any iconic album (think Nirvana’s Nevermind), their illustrations contest all that have gone before them. And in doing so, Jen and Lica’s artworks broaden the whole perspective of the Personal-a-Teas Portfolio. Similarly, closing track ‘Something In The Way’ did this for the ‘Nevermind’ masterpiece.

The last thing Personal-a-Teas wants to become is… predictable.

They complete the picture.
Male Flat White:

Flat White

Female Flat White:

Flat White

The Flat White: An explanation!

So, what is a Flat White? A Flat White is a double shot of espresso with a tight-knit micro-foamed milk, stopping, regardless of some baristas claims, well short of a cappuccino foam. Hence the term, ‘flat’ to describe it. The milk is to mingle in with the coffee, not sit on top like a foamy princess, as with the Cappuccino… or, really, as the Cappuccino was when first encountered.

The key to a Flat White is the balance between milk and coffee.

The Flat White is typically a strong, morning coffee, designed to kick-start your heart as you struggle bleary-eyed into the workday. The milk makes the drink last longer, and for those who can’t do Americanos, or have delicate tummies, the milk will line your stomach against the acidity of the coffee itself.

The Inspiration*

Dear End-User, you will find Jen and Lica’s artworks to be stripped down, raw, energetic and ambiguous. We love their unpredictability of them. We know you will too.

But what was the inspiration behind them?

The Flat White has become uber-cool now, and the drink of choice of hipsters. Which is unfortunate, because the drink has only recently become trendy, what with Starbucks, the plague of bad coffee it produces spewing out across the cultural and gastronomic landscape like an oil spill, sticking it on their menu a few years ago. But, the Flat White has been going for a long time and has been a reliably good coffee, when made in a place that appreciates it. It is a member of the third wave coffee couture that is hard to mess up.

Falling between a Latte and a Cappuccino, with a punch like Conor McGregor, it is a confident coffee, made for waking up and getting shit done. Soon, when the hipsters have moved on to something else to endlessly twist themselves up in knots about, the Flat White will persist. Whether it came from 1950s England or 1980s Australasia, 2 this rebellious coffee, which defies easy definition, either in origin or categorization, will be kicking ass in any cafe. Its consistent and persuasive smoothness, hiding the strength of two well-pulled espresso shots, invented, some say, as a quirky dance of fate, will continue to give people a reason to get up in the morning.

* Jen O’Shea