Fore Coffee did not start this campaign with a fictional trend or a generic character licensing brief. It started with cats showing up around its stores.
The Indonesian coffee chain says stories from baristas about cats near Fore outlets became part of the inspiration for “The Unexpected Fweends”, a collaboration with local comic IP Tahilalats. That idea is now living as a physical pop-up at fX Sudirman in Jakarta, where visitors can write messages to their cats, take photos with Tahilalats character Bubu, browse collaborative merchandise and pick up limited collectibles.
The useful marketing lesson is not that cats are popular.
It is how Fore turned a small, observable piece of everyday store culture into a campaign system that can stretch from storytelling into retail experience, products and participation.
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Why the campaign starts with behavior, not IP
Fore already had a storytelling platform before Tahilalats entered the picture.
Its “Setiap Fore Punya Cerita”, or “Every Fore Has a Story”, campaign launched in June around the idea that coffee sits inside ordinary personal moments. Fore used four Indonesian entertainment figures as ambassadors, but framed them as existing customers whose own routines could help invite more stories from the community.
The cat idea follows the same logic.
Fore chief marketing officer Matthew Ardian said the company heard stories from baristas about friendships that developed with cats around its outlets. Instead of treating those anecdotes as background color, the brand used them as the seed for a new campaign.
That makes the collaboration feel more grounded than an IP partnership built only around reach.
The starting point is something people could plausibly recognize from daily life around a coffee shop. Tahilalats then gives Fore a visual and comedic language for making that behavior bigger.
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How Tahilalats turns a coffee-shop story into a world
The partner choice works because Tahilalats is also built around ordinary life.
INFIA Corp describes the Indonesian character IP as a comic universe based on everyday experiences, usually pushed through satirical, exaggerated and absurd twists. Founder Nurfadli Mursyid said the Fore collaboration brings that humor out of digital comic panels and into a place people can experience in person.
At the fX Sudirman pop-up, that translation is literal.
Meow Mail gives visitors a prompt to write to their cats. Bubu becomes a photo moment. Collaborative graphics move onto drinkware, apparel and tote bags. The pop-up runs from September 24 to October 23, giving the campaign a physical home rather than leaving the partnership as a sequence of social posts.
For Fore, this is where the IP starts doing strategic work.
Tahilalats is not just supplying recognizable characters. Its everyday-life humor helps amplify the same kind of small observation that generated the campaign in the first place.
The campaign also gives people more than one way to participate.
Fore and Tahilalats created two tumbler designs, a cat-shaped bottle, a mug, two oversized T-shirt designs and five tote bag series. A mystery pouch can be purchased for Rp5,000 with Rp100,000 worth of Fore Coffee products while stocks last.
That adds a light collectible mechanic to an otherwise everyday coffee transaction.
The activation also arrives alongside Salted Spanish Latte and Crunchy Cereal Latte drinks plus Sea Salt and Truffle Tempeh Chips.
Those elements matter because they keep the campaign connected to the business Fore actually operates. The experience may be built around cats and comic characters, but the brand still gives visitors reasons to drink, eat, browse and buy within the same world.
That is a more useful role for experiential marketing than building a photo backdrop with no connection to the product.
What marketers can learn from Fore’s cat universe
Fore’s collaboration offers a simple framework for brands trying to work with local culture without making the partnership feel bolted on.
- Start with a behavior you already observe. The strongest idea here came from something happening around Fore’s own stores, not from a trend deck.
- Choose an IP that behaves like the brand idea. Tahilalats turns everyday situations into exaggerated humor, which matches Fore’s attempt to elevate small coffee-shop stories.
- Give the story multiple physical forms. Installations, merchandise, collectibles and menu items let one campaign idea move through different parts of the customer experience.
- Keep the product inside the cultural world. New drinks and snacks stop the activation from drifting too far away from what Fore sells.
- Use local IP as a creative language, not just borrowed fame. The partnership is stronger when the collaborator helps explain the idea rather than simply appearing on packaging.
Fore says people have been sharing stories and tagging friends around “The Unexpected Fweends”, but there is no independent public performance data yet showing what the campaign has done for footfall, sales or brand metrics.
What is already visible is the structure.
A coffee chain noticed a recurring detail in everyday store life, found a local IP whose humor could make that detail bigger, and turned the observation into a place people can enter. That is a more durable starting point for cultural marketing than adding a familiar character after the campaign idea is already finished.
This article is produced by ContentGrow. We’re building branded media outlets for B2B companies. Interested in learning more? Learn more.
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