Aroma Espresso Bar Canada
Brand Elevation & Strategic Consulting Engagement
Repositioning a Premium Café Brand for Growth, Resilience, and Market Leadership
Challenge
Aroma Espresso Bar operates a premium café franchise network of 50 locations across the Greater Toronto Area, competing in an increasingly crowded fast-casual and premium coffee category.
While the brand had strong fundamentals and a loyal customer base, leadership identified the need to further elevate Aroma’s positioning in Canada. This included refining the menu and in-store experience, introducing a premium pricing strategy, sharpening differentiation, and increasing awareness among higher-value customer segments.
In 2020, these growth objectives collided with unprecedented disruption. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced operational and financial risk across the franchise network, while the global reckoning on race heightened expectations for brands to demonstrate authentic leadership on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Aroma faced the dual challenge of supporting franchisees through crisis while ensuring the brand’s values, communications, and actions remained aligned with evolving social expectations.
Solution
The Fractional CMO engaged directly with Aroma’s founder and senior management team for more than three years to provide strategic brand, marketing, and advisory leadership.
The engagement focused on elevating the Aroma brand through market research, strategic positioning, and execution. This included defining priority customer segments, benchmarking against premium fast-casual competitors in the GTA, and informing menu enhancements with a renewed emphasis on wholesome, clean ingredients. The Fractional CMO also supported the introduction of a premium pricing model and led a targeted, omnichannel brand awareness campaign to reinforce Aroma’s elevated positioning.
During the pandemic, The Fractional CMO established and led Aroma’s crisis response team, overseeing communications related to health and safety, government support programs, and franchisee operational guidance. In parallel, the engagement included leading the first phase of Aroma’s corporate social responsibility framework, focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and establishing partnerships with in-community Black non-profit organizations.
Results
Successfully elevated Aroma’s brand positioning within the premium café and fast-casual category in the GTA
Contributed to exponential growth in revenue and profitability, supported by a successful premium repositioning and pricing strategy
Increased brand awareness and relevance across the GTA
Ensured 90% of franchisees remained operational through the pandemic, preserving network strength and continuity
Established a credible foundation for corporate social responsibility and DEI leadership, aligned with customer, community, and franchisee expectations
