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How Julius Meinl is making up for thousands of missed moments caused by the pandemic by inviting people to ‘Say Hello’

We’re encouraging people around the world to say hello to friends or even random strangers, and gift them a complimentary coffee, as part of our mission to give back some of the roughly 13 billion moments of social interaction we’ve missed out on across Europe’s cities over the past 12 months. We’re calling it the ‘Say Hello’ initiative. As this sip-sized video below asks: ‘Who are you going to say hello to?’

How many new conversations with new acquaintances beginning with ‘hello’ do you think you’ve missed out on over the last year of lockdowns? It’s for sure more than you expected.

 

‘Hello’ is a small, yet meaningful moment that can be the beginning of something bigger.

As people in cities around the world begin to  revisit their favourite cafes after long lockdowns, we’re looking to encourage them to say hello to each other. 

 

In an effort to support our HoReCa partners as they reopen across the world, and to fulfil our mission to make up for thousands of missed moments,  we are inviting  our coffee-loving community to gift a friend, or a random stranger, a coffee.

 

Throughout June (check your local Julius Meinl website for the specific dates in your region), if you buy a Julius Meinl coffee in your favourite cafe, you’ll receive a voucher for a complimentary coffee that you can pay forward to a friend, or a stranger.

 

We’ve missed out on A LOT since the pandemic sent most of our home cities and lives into lockdown.

 

You, like many people around the world, may have even found yourself daydreaming about what could have been, the moments you missed while cooped up indoors throughout 2020 (and 2021).

 

 

As we’re in the business of coffee, and enhancing moments that involve coffee, we’ve certainly done a lot of this kind of daydreaming. So much so that our curiosity led us to conduct a survey to actually find out roughly how many social interactions may have been missed out on since city’s began closing down in March 2020.

 

Spoiler alert: It’s in the billions. We’re talking roughly 13 billion social encounters never happened due to the pandemic lockdowns that normally would have.

 

Plus, the research also revealed a whopping one billion coffees that would normally have been served up in coffee houses never made their way into cups.

 

But here’s the good news – the survey that was conducted in Milan, London, Vienna, and Bucharest revealed that out of all the things people missed while in lockdown, going for a coffee was THE most missed moment.

Now, why would we conduct such a survey, you ask?

 

Firstly, because we at Julius Meinl strongly believe in the value of the small, yet meaningful moments that make up our lives.

 

Secondly, because we wanted to know how many lost moments we needed to make up for with our ‘Say Hello’ campaign.

 

 

In the words of our managing director for Austria, Christina Meinl – ‘We’re looking to bring the world back together again after the pandemic pulled us apart.’

And apparently people are hungry to do exactly what the ‘Say Hello’ campaign aims to inspire – according to the research, people are now more likely to start a conversation with a stranger than in pre-pandemic times.

 

Plus, one in five surveyed said the place they would most likely start up a new conversation would be a cafe.

 

While undergoing this research, we also consulted with internationally-renowned psychologist, Professor Geoffrey Beattie, to see what he made of the survey’s findings.

 

‘There were many things that people missed during lockdown – but a face-to-face encounter, a chat, real human interaction is what they missed more than anything. Human contact is so important to our well-being,’ said Professor Beattie.

 

It’s obvious people are craving social connections after being apart for so long and we at Julius Meinl aim to give them another reason to have them. This is what our campaign is about.

We also aim to give our customers a good dose of hope and positivity with each cup of coffee they gift and receive as part of the campaign, and say hello to the better days – filled with plenty of cafe meetups and the random, uplifting social encounters that enrich our days – ahead.

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