A Housing Market Where Coffee Needs A Rebrand

October 3, 2025

Time to read [4 minutes]

Takeways

  • Maxwell House’s temporary rebrand to Maxwell Apartment highlights how the housing affordability crisis now shapes major consumer marketing.
  • The campaign, at first glance seen as a hoax, shows that rental living has become a central theme in public discourse.
  • With a third of U.S. households renting, brands are targeting affordability concerns to connect with today’s consumers.

I shared this press release with many friends, and every single one of them initially thought it was a hoax. It isn’t, but it clearly illustrates how the housing affordability crisis has become a dominant topic in public discourse. KraftHeinz thought it was a good idea to temporarily rebrand Maxwell House to Maxwell Apartment, a brand stalwart for 133 years. But Heinz has broken marketing rules before. Admittedly, I have a soft spot for Heinz after I won their national scholarship as a high school senior (I wrote the required essay in longhand with a blue ballpoint pen while wearing a bathing suit at the beach), which paid for half of my tuition for my first year and I’m not a huge ketchup fan. Heinz made an impression on me through my last college speech in 1982. I chose to close out the semester by talking about food quality, which included the number of rodent hairs allowed in peanut butter and the question: “What has more sugar, a pound of ketchup or a pound of ice cream?” Just barely, but true. This temporary rebranding effort for Maxwell House sounds familiar because we saw a similar occurrence in 2018 with IHOP, which lasted about a month (There is also an interesting story about the IHOP CEO). This KraftHeinz marketing effort is an attempt to revitalize the Maxwell House brand, more tightly aligning it with its less affluent consumers, consistent with the demographics of rent versus buy. Now we have Maxwell Apartment, a product aimed at one-third of US households.

Friday Coffee Trivia

My dad founded a French cooking school just outside of DC (he was a serial entrepreneur) and sold it to his partner in the late 1970s. When I was in high school, one of the things he taught was “coffee.” Back then, I didn’t drink coffee (I do now) but was (and still am) obsessed with any coffee flavored with ice cream. I recall learning in the class that canned coffee manufacturers sprayed higher-quality coffee on top to impart a better aroma. And he had the receipts. When I searched to confirm this piece of trivia from my teenage memories of the 1970s, I couldn’t find confirmation, but I distinctly remember it. Perhaps I might be confusing it with the spray drying done on the top layer for freeze-dried coffee, but who knows? I was a teenager and was easily distracted by listening to glam rock.

Another fun coffee trivia point is that the brand Starbucks is named after the first mate in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, and the theme of the high seas inspired their mermaid logo. Now you know.

But I digress…

Next Steps

Maxwell Apartment is offering one-year leases – buy a year’s supply on Amazon to save $1,000. Therefore, its competitors have a limited window to match this publicity stunt: I suggest Folgers Condos and Choc full o’ Nuts Co-ops.

Final Thoughts

Admittedly, I don’t drink Maxwell House coffee, but I have long used their formerly metal cans to hold nuts and bolts on my workbench in our garage. The shock value of this temporary rebranding might be a good idea for Maxwell House, but it comes with some downside marketing risks. I’m no marketing expert, but a key point of marketing is to convey aspirational themes. By drinking this coffee after rebranding reinforces to the consumer who buys it that they can’t afford to purchase a home. I’m all for speaking to reality, but that’s probably not good marketing.

The Actual Final Thought – Consistent with the coffee theme, here’s a fun coffee-related song clip and a spoken word album I recommend.

[Podcast] What It Means With Jonathan Miller

The You Don’t Need A Compass To Go Anywhere episode is just a click away. The podcast feeds can be found here:

Apple (Douglas Elliman feed)   Soundcloud  Youtube

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