The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is leveraging its 63rd anniversary to drive traffic and brand engagement across more than 1,200 locations in 20-plus countries, launching a phased marketing initiative called Make It Yours that centers on beverage customization and limited-edition merchandise — two levers increasingly central to specialty-coffee operators competing for share in a crowded global market.
The Campaign Architecture
The Jollibee Group-owned chain is rolling out the anniversary push in three sequential phases. The first, dubbed "Kindling Brand Love," taps loyal guests, baristas, and global artists to surface personal brand stories — a strategy that doubles as earned-media fuel and loyalty reinforcement. The second phase, "Sharing The Love," recruits influencers and content creators to amplify the #MakeItYours hashtag across social platforms, targeting a younger daypart audience. The third phase, "Celebrating Together," moves the activation into physical units with in-store events designed to convert digital engagement into foot traffic and repeat visits.
Customization as a Traffic Driver
At the operational core of the campaign is CBTL's existing build-your-own platform — specifically the "On The Rocks" beverage format, which allows guests to layer Crème Crowns, Espresso Shots, and Flavor Boosts into personalized cold drinks. That kind of modular customization architecture has become a proven comp-sales driver across the specialty-coffee segment, with chains from Dutch Bros to Starbucks reporting that add-on attachment rates meaningfully lift per-ticket averages. For CBTL, spotlighting that platform during an anniversary window is a straightforward way to reactivate lapsed users and introduce customization to newer markets in Asia, where the brand is headquartered.
The campaign also includes a limited-edition LTO merchandise line — patches, keychain straps, and tote bags — designed around a 63rd-anniversary artist theme. Branded merchandise has emerged as a margin-accretive ancillary revenue stream for specialty-coffee operators; Starbucks and other premium chains have demonstrated that collectible or artist-collaboration items can meaningfully extend dwell time and social shareability.
Competitive Context
CBTL's anniversary push lands at a moment when the global specialty-coffee segment faces intensifying competition from fast-casual entrants, domestic Asian chains, and convenience-store coffee programs that have compressed the premium positioning that independents and legacy chains once owned outright. Operating more than 1,200 units across more than 20 countries — with a footprint concentrated in Southeast Asia and the Middle East — CBTL occupies a distinct niche as a Western-heritage brand managed out of Asia under Jollibee's multi-brand portfolio strategy. Jollibee's international brand management approach has increasingly emphasized brand-level marketing investment to sustain AUV performance in mature markets while supporting new-unit development in growth corridors.
The Make It Yours campaign does not disclose specific same-store sales targets, AUV figures, or franchisee development commitments tied to the anniversary activation. However, phased campaigns of this structure — beginning with brand-affinity content, escalating through influencer distribution, and culminating in in-store activation — are broadly designed to sustain transaction counts through a defined promotional window rather than rely on a single product LTO.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
