Popradská's 'The Secret Of True Coffee Lover' campaign by Zaraguza won Gold at Effie Slovakia 2018, using narrative film to challenge coffee snobbery across
ARCHIVEHow Popradská Made Coffee Snobbery a Slovak Cultural Conversation
Popradská's "The Secret Of True Coffee Lover" is a 2018 Slovak narrative film campaign created by Bratislava agency Zaraguza that challenges social divisions among coffee drinkers by arguing that true coffee love is defined by tolerance rather than preparation method, targeting the non-alcoholic drinks category across Slovakia.
Launched in May 2018, the campaign — known in Slovak as Tajomstvo pravého kávičkára — takes a position that is rare in the food and drink category: it refuses to celebrate a single brewing ritual or product variant. Instead, it directs its creative energy toward a social observation, that coffee lovers have fractured into rigid preference tribes, each dismissive of the other. Popradská, produced by Baliarne obchodu Poprad a.s., one of Slovakia's established domestic coffee brands, uses this cultural friction as its central narrative engine.
The film medium is the campaign's sole asset, and its ambition is carried entirely through storytelling. The objective is brand positioning rather than product promotion — Popradská is not advertising a specific roast or format but staking out a values-led identity in a competitive coffee division. In Slovakia, where both international and domestic coffee brands compete for consumer loyalty, this kind of narrative campaign represents a calculated differentiator. The campaign was submitted through industry channels and has since accumulated recognition across Slovak advertising awards, establishing it as one of the more discussed food and drink campaigns to emerge from the country in 2018.
Popradská identified a genuine cultural tension as its strategic foundation. The brand's agency, Zaraguza, recognised that the coffee division in Slovakia had become increasingly fragmented, with distinct communities of espresso purists, filter devotees, and instant drinkers developing identities that were as much social as sensory. Rather than positioning Popradská within one of these camps, the campaign chose to stand above them — advocating tolerance across social bubbles as a brand value.
This strategic move is commercially astute. A brand that aligns with one preparation method risks alienating consumers who favour another. By making the campaign's hero insight the shared love of coffee itself — not its form — Popradská widens its potential audience while building emotional resonance. Strategist Juraj Pobjecký shaped this positioning, according to credits documented at goldendrum.com, ensuring the insight was structurally sound before it reached the creative team.
The broader context supports this approach. According to the Centre for the Promotion of Imports from developing countries, known as CBI, Eastern European markets were registering growing coffee consumption in the years surrounding the campaign's launch, with consumer tastes diversifying across preparation formats. In Slovakia specifically, domestic brands like Popradská face direct competition from international coffee players including Nescafé, which commands strong instant coffee recognition, and Julius Meinl, which is well established across Central and Eastern European café culture. Against these competitors, a values-led narrative campaign gives Popradská a differentiating lane that product-feature advertising cannot easily occupy. The tolerance campaign framework allowed the brand to speak to all coffee lovers simultaneously, rather than subdividing its own audience.
Pepe Ehrenberger directed "The Secret Of True Coffee Lover." His involvement signals a production investment consistent with the campaign's ambition to carry a complex social argument through film alone, without supporting print or outdoor assets.
The cinematography was handled by director of photography Martin Chlpík, whose visual contribution is central to a campaign that relies on atmosphere and character observation rather than product demonstration. The creative direction and copywriting were led by Michal Pastier, with art direction by Milan Malý and additional copy by Jaroslav Vígh — a team whose combined credits are documented at goldendrum.com and clapboard.com. Account management was handled by Jaroslava Huljakova, according to those same credits.
The creative execution translates the tolerance campaign concept into a character-driven narrative. Rather than presenting Popradská as a product solution, the film uses human behaviour — specifically the judgment that coffee drinkers direct at one another's choices — as its dramatic material. This is a sophisticated creative choice for the food and drink category, where campaigns more commonly organise around taste, ritual, or lifestyle aspiration. By making snobbery and social bubbles the antagonist, the film invites viewers into a self-aware moment of recognition. The creative team at Zaraguza understood that the most effective way to position a mass-market coffee brand is sometimes to make the audience laugh at the absurdity of coffee tribalism rather than to validate it. The result is a piece of narrative advertising that functions as cultural commentary, giving Popradská a tone of voice that stands apart from conventional non-alcoholic drinks advertising in Slovakia.
ARCHIVE"The Secret Of True Coffee Lover" won Gold at Effie Slovakia 2018 in the FMCG category, according to yearinreview.zaraguza.com, making it the only campaign to claim that distinction in its category that year. Effie awards assess marketing effectiveness rather than creative merit alone, meaning this recognition speaks directly to the campaign's commercial and strategic performance in Slovakia, not merely its production quality.
The campaign also received a Silver Klinec and a Bronze Klinec at Zlatý klinec 2018, according to Adcslovensko Sk, Slovakia's principal creative industry awards programme. Holding recognition across both an effectiveness award and a creative award in the same cycle is a meaningful signal: it indicates that the work functioned both as communication and as craft.
No additional verified performance data — such as brand tracking scores, sales uplift figures, or media reach numbers — is publicly available for this campaign beyond its awards record. However, the structural effectiveness of its approach is legible from first principles. A film campaign anchored in a social insight, directed at a broad coffee-drinking audience in Slovakia, and positioned around an emotionally resonant value like tolerance is well-designed to generate both earned attention and brand preference shift. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 63 out of 100, reflecting strong creative intent and award validation, moderated by the absence of publicly available performance metrics and the single-asset format of the campaign.
"The Secret Of True Coffee Lover" is a 2018 Slovak film campaign by Zaraguza that argues true coffee love means tolerating how others drink their coffee. Rather than promoting a specific product, Popradská used the campaign to challenge social divisions between coffee drinkers across Slovakia, positioning the brand around tolerance.
Zaraguza, a Bratislava-based advertising agency, created the campaign. The creative team included director Pepe Ehrenberger, creative director and copywriter Michal Pastier, art director Milan Malý, copywriter Jaroslav Vígh, and strategist Juraj Pobjecký, according to credits documented at goldendrum.com.
The campaign won Gold at Effie Slovakia 2018 in the FMCG category, making it the only Gold winner in that category, according to Yearinreview Zaraguza. It also received a Silver Klinec and a Bronze Klinec at Zlatý klinec 2018, according to adcslovensko.sk, recognising both its effectiveness and creative quality.
Popradská and Zaraguza identified that Slovakia's coffee division had fragmented into competing taste tribes. By advocating tolerance across those social bubbles rather than aligning with one brewing method, the brand positioned itself to speak to all coffee lovers simultaneously, avoiding the commercial risk of excluding large consumer segments.
The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 63 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's strong creative intent and dual award recognition across Effie Slovakia and Zlatý klinec, moderated by its single-asset film format and the absence of publicly available performance metrics beyond its awards record.
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