Monday, July 4

Today has been a lot busier than the previous weekend - the graduates seem very enthusiastic about the possibility to drink "real, good coffee" and appreciate Julius Meinl's presence at Summer Splash 2011. We had more graduates for the internship casting as well as collected more and more napkins.

Sunday, July 3

Today the last groups arrived and the crew is ready for the final week of Summer Splash 2011. As already mentioned, this group seems to be a lot more quiet that the last weeks. However, they seem like they are more into coffee and prefer warm variatives. The graduates are also very active and participate in the Napkin Poetry competition and seem very eager to win a coffee machine from Julius Meinl. We have been using less coffee bags, however this can be explained by the fact that there are 1,300 students less this week. All in all, a rather quiet day, inside as well as on the beach and the pools - we guess, the students partied too hard last night :). We are ready for another busy days and eager to make delicious cups of Meinl coffee :)!

Saturday, July 2

Day of departure :( Unfortunately, Nicki and Manfred had to leave already - so did the second group of Summer Splash. Many graduates were waiting in the hotel lobby for their bus back to the airport. However, we still found some very motivated graduates who took part in the internship casting and the Napkin Poetry. The transition from "old" to new graduates happened more smoothly this time and you could tell that the second group was smaller. At the same time we noticed that this group was more into warm coffee specialities and heared about the Julius Meinl Poetry Café from their friends that have been on Summer Splash during the previous weeks. So far - so good: we are looking forward to "meinl" the last group of this huge event!

Friday, July 1

Again - as usual for the second week, a very busy day with lots of graduates enjoying Julius Meinl Coffee and being creative on the Napkin Poetry. However, not only are the graduates very creative and enthusiastic about Julius Meinl at the Poetry Café, but also outside the Café. We were lucky to capture this special Meinl moment with our phones:

Summarizing the second week of Summer Splash 2011 we would like to mention that this is was by far the busiest week, since Summer Splash was hosting 5,300 graduates in comparison to the first week where we had about 2,500. We were literally making coffee from 11 in the morning until the closing hour at 6pm. Moreover, we were able to find more graduates who were quite impressed by the possibility to do an internship with Julius Meinl and applied - very successful and creative. We tried to post a video of one of our favourites on the blog, but it did not seem to work out :( We will try again, hopefully with a better internet connection.

Later the same day, we could enjoy some time off together with Nicki and went jet-skiing - definitely an experience! At night we met Nicki and Manfred on the main floor and watched the performance of Culcha Candela together!

Thursday, June 30

What an awesome day - we got to share our experiences with Nicki and Manfred. Again we used 10 coffee bags and created decilicious cups of coffee for graduates, but also for the VIP guests, Michael Konsel to name one of them. Later that afternoon, the guys went outside on the beach to see the Masters of Dirt show which was very impressive. At the same time we had some very productive graduates working on the Poetry Wall and the Napkin Poetry competition.

At night, we met Nicki again on the Cruise Missile and enjoyed some sun and talks with the other VIPs and the Splash Line staff. They told us how much they enjoyed having Julius Meinl at Summer Splash and that it has become a real great success.

Wednesday, June 29

It has been crazy busy recently and we are a bit late with the latest blog posts. Wednesday we were again very busy - this trend continued throughout the whole second week of Summer Splash. We have been very excited all day about the arrival of Nicki and could not wait to see him in the evening and to tell him about our experiences at the Julius Meinl Poetry Café.

Early this morning we did a little photo shoot with a Julius Meinl cup and captured some very nice moments on the beach.

Julius Meinl everywhere - even in Turkey at Summer Splash 2011!

Tuesday, June 28

What a busy day - again we have been making coffee non-stop from 11:00 until 18:00 (actually we went beyond 18:00) and the line reached even until the door (meaning at least 20 people waiting for a coffee). Again we went through almost 10 coffee bags and also our marketing initiatives are becoming more attractive: we got lots of new Poetry stickers on the wall and the napkin box has been filling too.

We are very excited to see Nicolaus tomorrow for the Partner weekend and to share our experiences and impressions of this project with him "live".

Monday, June 27

Things are really heating up and the new students know we are here. We are making coffee literally non stop, today we went through 10 bags of coffee as opposed to the average 6 that we had gone through the days before. From what we hear from the veteran Summer Splash staff, the second week for whatever reason is always the busiest and we are looking forward to start seeing both new and familiar faces stopping in for a perfect cup of coffee.

Our new help Martina from summer splash who is replacing Ulli has been briefed and is helping out tremendously with our marketing initiatives. We are working hard to spread the word about our Poetry wall which is filling up once again and and we have tones of new entries in the poetry napkin chest.

We expect a huge turn out again tomorrow and are prepared for a busy day.

Sunday, June 26th

Again a pretty short one: new students now arrived and the hotels are complete (or more) and the Julius Meinly Poetry Café is becoming increasingly busy. Very interesting note: compared to the first days of the first week, we had remarkably more students this second week. We guess the news is spreading among friends, who are going on Summer Splash on different weeks. Word of mouth is working..... :)

Saturday, June 25

Today's a short one, we were incredibly busy with a full lobby of students leaving and new students coming, we were going non-stop until 18:00!

It was time today to empty the poetry box and keep it open for new inspiration. We haven't counted yet but it is a lot, well over 100 "works". Here is another taste of what these students are capable of...

Friday, June 24

Yet another day has passed and our loyal graduates from the first week were stopping by one last time before the end of their vacation to say goodbye and enjoy a memorable coffee.

Later today when we had a chance to read the Clubzeitung we found ourselves once again mentioned, however this time with a picture. We have become quite close with many members of the summer splash team :)

Our napkin poetry and wall are still going strong and we even recruited a potential intern for casting during our time off at the beach.

Today Maja finally made it to the doctor after a day of feeling slightly under the weather. These things are inevitable I suppose when traveling in foreign countries. She is doing find now and is getting some rest before tomorrow.

We should also mention that we received our new banner for the poetry cafe which adds a more finished touch to the whole thing and makes us even more visible, and also spill proof (coffee stains).

Alright that's it for today, tomorrow 4,700 students, it's going to be busy!

Thursday, June 23

Good morning Julius! Earlier, when reading the daily Summer Splash newspaper, guess what we have found: it has already been announced that we changed the opening hours to 6pm! Graduates and the Summer Splash staff are very excited about the possibility to drink delicious coffee also in the late afternoon hours, just before dinner and getting ready for the night. The news for sure spread quickly - we were incredibly busy already in the morning and the Siebträger did not get a break from pouring perfect Espressi until we closed for the day.

Tonight we had a great night at the party cruise and apparently gained popularity among the graduates as they have started to ask for photos together with the Julius Meinl staff! Also the guests of the night - the Urban Knights from the UK - are already excited to taste our coffee tomorrow (we guess sometime in the late afternoon... Benny loves coffee!).

After arriving back at the hotel we had a short snack and chat with some of the Summer Splash and ORF staff. They told us about the success and the impact we are having with the Julius Meinl Poetry Café and that it strongly increased the quality standards offered at Sunmer Splash. Not only did they change their spirits suppliers in the past years, but highly stressed the fact that they now can offer high quality coffee to their customers. We are looking forward to more positive feedback :)

Wednesday, June 22

Today we once again had more and more graduates coming to the Julius Meinl Poetry Café. After spending the night before out and socializing with graduates, we had many coming back and indeed asking for our coffee - I guess our marketing works :)

Due to the high demand we have decided to stay open longer, in fact until 5pm. Since the feedback was very positive we have now officially changed the opening times to 11am to 6pm. It is sad to see that our regular customers from the past days are going to leave again soon to go back home to Austria, but we are positive that Julius Meinl coffee will remain in their minds as they enjoyed their last vacation together with their high school mates with an amazing view over the beach and the sea. However, we are already very excited to prepare for the next wave of students - Summer Splash will host 4,700 next week!

Tuesday, June 21

Our busiest day yet! We were "booked" for supplying the Summer splash crew with 21 coffees first thing in the morning for their morning meeting, They love us! After that it was a steady flow of graduates until our close at 16:00 We have had several requests for extending our hours due to popular demand.

The Poetry wall is filling up with quotes of inspiration as well as our box of napkin poetry, students now seem to be spending more and more time hanging out in the cafe due to it's central location, steady flow of caffeine, and chill out atmosphere more than coffee-to-go.

Maja early this morning on stage at the beach floor had the pleasure of meet

ing the creator of Summer Splash who expressed his gratitude for our presence and told us that we really seem to represent the new face of Julius Meinl.

Until tomorrow...

Tuesday, June 21

Our busiest day yet! We were "booked" for supplying the Summer splash crew with 21 coffees first thing in the morning for their morning meeting, They love us! After that it was a steady flow of graduates until our close at 16:00 We have had several requests for extending our hours due to popular demand.

The Poetry wall is filling up with quotes of inspiration as well as our box of napkin poetry, students now seem to be spending more and more time hanging out in the cafe due to it's central location, steady flow of caffeine, and chill out atmosphere more than coffee-to-go.

Maja early this morning on stage at the beach floor had the pleasure of meeting the creator of Summer Splash who expressed his gratitude for our presence and told us that we really seem to represent the new face of Julius Meinl.

Until tomorrow...

Monday, June 20th

What a good start into the week! We had more and more graduates coming to the Meinl Poetry Café and the news about the existence of a coffee "house" at Summer Splash is spreading. We heard our radio spot on the Ö3 Radio and realized that also Word of Mouth has been contributing a lot to our popularity.

Just like the other days, we have noticed that cold coffee is most popular among the group of "Maturanten". We have also managed to animate the graduates to share their inspirations with us for the Napkin Poetry Competition. As you can see, we have already collected very creative napkins :) We are excited to see more creativity within the next few days!

Sunday, June 19th

Our second official day with all 3500 students and we are slowly but surely becoming a hit. Increasing word of mouth, much help from the amazing Summer Splash staff, and our hourly rounds of coffee cocktails on the beach and are really getting the word out that we are here and ready to keep these graduates moving with great coffee for the week ahead.

Today was our first go at the internship casting and for the first day with all students we did alright casting several very promising candidates. With the help of our beloved Ulli, our helper for the week from Summer Splash, we found a perfect spot for filming the interviews which offers a great view of our branding on the balcony and the poetry wall.

Saturday, June 18th

Our first official day! Graduates just arrived and the pools, the beach and the Julius Meinl Poetry Café are starting to get crowded!

We had a pretty successful day – we spread the news about the Poetry Café and also welcomed some of the 3,500 graduates with a refreshing welcome coffee cocktail at the reception. Pictures will be posted soon Mark and Jakob have been distributing coffee shots on the beach and the pools as well and gained very positive feedback.

Throughout the day, we early realized that cold coffee is very popular among the students – especially our coffee cocktail “Lychee on the rocks” has been ordered regularly and recommended among the graduates. Our Splash Line assistant Ulli has been very active in communicating our competitions, possibilities of winning coffee machines and participating in our Internship Casting.

Since it was the first day and only half of all graduates have arrived so far, we are very much looking forward to a busy day tomorrow.

Let's get started!

After a crowded flight (lots of kids and babies) from Vienna to Antalya, Turkey and an hour long bus ride to the coast which was slightly faster due to the amount of blown red lights, we finally arrived at the Pegasos Resort in Incekum.

We paid a quick visit to the hotel and our rooms and had lunch before a rendez-vous with some of our main contacts for the next three weeks. Right away it was very obvious that this is going to be a huge event, entertaining but

also challenging for us. Not only we will we provide free coffee specialities for 13,000 students within the next three weeks, but we also have to face the difficulties in communicating with the locals working at the hotel. After a short briefing with our summer splash contacts, we met representatives from the coffee machine company who briefly introduced us to the functions of the machine. However, we soon discovered that language was going to be major hurdle. Neither did the locals speak English, nor German, which made it very difficult for all parties. Fortunately, we had coffee training at the Meinl and already had some background knowledge in using such coffee machines.

After getting situated we had the pleasure to meet a manager from the hotel chain, who invited us for some traditional turkish tea to have an informal chat. She told us about her previous experiences with Summersplash (all positive ones of course) and that she was very much looking forward to enjoying Meinl coffee at the terrace.

Soon after a short meeting, we had to return back

to work to create a Viennese style coffee house within the resort. Basically, we managed to turn three tables and a coffee machine into a welcoming coffee bar. Tomorrow we will have a hopefully very caffeinated run through to see how the set up works and make sure we have enough supplies to accommodate the menu.

Well, it is going to be an early start tomorrow morning - some sleep, an energizing breakfast, some sun and decaffeinated students are waiting for us!