Tea currently represents the world’s second most popular beverage after water. The widely consumed varieties of tea are black, green, oolong, and white, out of which black tea accounts for more than 60% of the global tea production and consumption, followed by green tea. The United States is one of the biggest importers of tea worldwide, after Russia and Pakistan. US tea consumption is expected to continue to grow at a rate of 3% year in the coming years. Global consumption exceeded production and is growing at a rate of approximately 5% per year. India and China are the world’s biggest tea consumers and drive consumption mainly due to an increasing population.

Along with having various health benefits of drinking tea, the growth of Ready-to-Drink Teas, increased consumption in the Foodservice Segment, premiumisation, convenient packaging and innovation in marketing have been the key factors driving the growth of the global tea market. According to IMARC Group, the global tea market has grown at a CAGR of 5.2% during 2009-2016, reaching production volumes worth 5.6 million tons in 2017.

Region wise, India is both the world’s largest producer and consumer of black tea. India is followed by the European Union, Russian Federation, China, and Turkey. Being a competitive market it is controlled by a few key players. Some of the players globally are Unilever, Tata Tea, McLeod Russel, James Finlay and John Keells.

In 2016, Americans consumed half a pound of tea per person (on average). Black tea is the tea of choice in the USA, making up 85% of all consumption. Green tea accounts for 14% and the remnant is made up from oolong, white, and other tea varieties.

The increasing demand for tea (including traditional, specialty, ready-to-drink, and food service) has increased in recent years, most likely due to an increased global interest in health and diet in general and the sales of carbonated soft drinks have decreased accordingly.

Tea types to Tea-start ups

The number of available tea types and flavors has continued to grow to meet demand, and alternative teas such as green tea have started to gain ground. Sales are expected to grow further due to changing consumer needs and preferences.

Green tea is one of the tea varieties expected to gain market share in 2017, due to increased emphasis and awareness of its reported health benefits. Green tea health benefits such as anti-aging and anti-cancer properties have been widely reported in health magazines and mainstream TV shows worldwide.

While health benefits may account for the increase in sales of green tea, taste is still the most important factor for most consumers buying tea and increased flavor options, as well as tea blends and fusions, are expected to be a trend for any leading tea brands.

Specialized premium teas are also expected to grow, due to the increased public interest in locally sourced, ethical, and organic foodstuffs. Marketing and packaging are also set to evolve, in order to create a brand story that is appealing to consumers.

Specialty teas are currently enjoying a 10% year on year growth rate and millennials, in particular, are showing an increased interest in new and unique tea products and there is currently a rash of new startups, such as Teabox and Teforia, targeting this influential market group.

Tea-infused alcoholic beverages are also proving to be a popular product with this age group, both on the supermarket shelves and on the menu in restaurants and bars globally. Business today awarded The Teabox company the title of  “India’s Top 16 Coolest Startups”. They produced a corporate promo video narrating their experience from tea gardens to the tea box:

WEBSITE- T store

Teabox’s website is a vision to watch: https://www.teabox.com/

Not only have they incorporated all varieties of specialized tea, elegantly displayed and presented, but they also have a “Tea Finder” for each customer, wherein, their preferences are taken as an input to ‘find’ and curate the best tea for each customer. This gives each visitor to their website a note of special feeling and attention. They have curated the best of loose leaf, tea wares and a wide range of tea gift choices.

Collaborating with special tea brewers, cafes, or hotels could be a very smart move for tea companies. Teabox has successfully collaborated with Vivanta hotels and resorts, The Oberoi Group, Jaypee resort, and hotels. They have added on a specially opulent Darbar Range as “Corporate Gifts” to be given to Corporate and business clients, thus enlarging their connections in innovative and the most useful of ways. That’s what we call efficient marketing.

Promoting Tea through Sports & Music: Partnerships

The news that India’s Makaibari Darjeeling tea would be served at the 2014 FIFA World Cup made headlines within the industry and beyond. Tea from this well-known estate was to be served to players, guests and other dignitaries in the cafeterias and stadium boxes throughout the month-long tournament. It was big news for Makaibari, but it was also another indication of the ways that tea can gain attention and popularity through sport.

Bigelow Tea has seen the possibilities of such relationships since they announced a partnership with the Boston Red Sox baseball team in 2008. Their then manager Terry Francona was known to be a great lover of tea, drinking a cup of green tea before each game.

In 2013 PepsiCo announced that its RTD Lipton tea was the new “Official Iced Tea of Major League Baseball.” In the past, Lipton has had PGA Tour deals and a sponsorship with Bowling’s U.S. Open.  

Twisted Tea, the maker of the No. 1 refreshing hard iced tea in the United States, hits the road with the music legend singer/songwriter Dierks Bentley. As a sponsor of Dierks’ explosive “2017 WHAT THE HELL WORLD TOUR”, Twisted Tea will bring cold, refreshing Twisted Tea to Country music lovers across the U.S. Keeping the summer fun rolling, Twisted Tea also provided one lucky fan with the chance to fly out with friends and join Dierks on tour for a VIP experience, complete with backstage access and a private VIP concert before the show.

The value of these partnerships for the tea companies is getting access to an established audience. Programs often include branding opportunities, social media outreach, and advertising space.

Tea Campaigns

Clipper Tea Campaign
Clipper Teas will embark on an extensive summer sampling campaign for its flagship range of Fairtrade green teas, designed to position the brand as the “Queen of Greens”. Clipper Teas will distribute over 250,000 samples of its pure green tea throughout July. An all-female “Clipper crew” of green queens in flower-chain crowns will tour high footfall outdoor areas, distributing samples from bicycles and trailers.

Brand owner Wessanen said that the new campaign will aim to champion the delicious, natural taste of Clipper’s green tea range, as well the health benefits of green tea and the company’s ethical heritage. It builds on the brand’s quirky Truthful Green Tea Shop pop-up activation earlier this year, which took a humorous hidden camera approach to highlight the difference between Clipper’s green tea and those sold by other marketers. Let us have a look at their excellent video:

Such eye-opening videos aimed not only at marketing your own product but also at educating people. They also have a short film on how Clipper tea bags are  ‘different’ and ‘special’. The film was created entirely out of paper and tells the story of how Clipper keeps their green tea natural- emphasizing that they don’t even bleach their teabags.

Honest Tea Campaign

One of the most famous tea campaigns ever held was the campaign organised by Honest Tea. Honest Tea posed a provocative question: Which city scores the highest on the National Honesty Index? The idea of ‘honest tea’, ‘honest stores’ and ‘honest buyers’ was astounding & au courant.

Honest Tea was doing a social experiment, in cities all across the US, to see how honest, consumers in each city were,– by giving them the opportunity to donate 1 dollar in exchange of one bottle.

As the brand director noted, a successful social media campaign is about using influencers. In this case, by tying a physical pop-up location with an online platform, the company has been able to use local influencers to nationally influence the target audience.

Let’s take a look at their compelling campaign that went viral while getting conducted in Los Angeles:

Yorkshire Tea Campaign

Yorkshire Tea, the fastest growing mainstream tea brand, is turning up the marketing volume by becoming an official sponsor of the English Cricket team. The Brand Director so stated that the inspiration behind cricket is that it is the only sport that has a tea break.  It’s a great tradition and it’s a very English thing to do. The tea brand dedicated 20% of its annual marketing budget to the deal and activated it through TV advertising, created by BMB, social media and on-pack promotion. Their campaign video is probably the best of its kind:

Tea Robots- A Pro Instead of Traditional Vendors

South African beverage company BOS Ice Tea has launched what may well be the world’s first Twitter-activated vending machine. Anyone who sends a tweet to the machine while standing in front of it will receive a free sample of BOS Ice Tea, a popular organic beverage made in South Africa from Rooibos, an indigenous plant which locals have used to make traditional tea for hundreds of years. When a Tweet is found to be within the boundaries, a drink is dispensed, and the machine deactivates itself for a set period. During this time, the screen name field of the tweet is displayed on the LED display, alternated every five seconds by the number of seconds left before the machine becomes active again.

South Africans are more active on Twitter than people from any other country in  Africa, according to a study issued in January, by Portland Communications and Tweetminster.

Let’s take a look at how it works and the amount of engagement and buzz it caused in South Africa-

Lipton launched the world’s first Calorie burning vending machine to raise awareness of the light series and deliver the only “3,3 calories” message. Just as the customer approaches the automated machine will start drifting here and there, and people would have to catch the vending machine; After which they’ll have burnt their calories and Lipton would give them their “3,3 calories” Ice tea to the folks!

Let’s see the amount of engagement it caused:

Lipton even launched a specially designed and manufactured social device of their own. Their idea was to get people interacting socially in the real way. Anything can happen over a cup of Lipton! They incorporated statistical data that “we spend 20% of our social time disconnected from real friends and family”. So they created a new device to encourage people to leave their mobiles aside and connect face to face for ‘true’ social experience. In this Lipton social device, people had to put their phones into the device to win a 1% discount in every 6 minutes, where more face to face interactions would be rewarded as discounts in their cafe checks. They continued this campaign for one week in 10 cafes, connecting more than 4,500 people truly.

Promo Videos: Your signature move

A promotional video, like the one below, is essentially a TV commercial for the Internet.  A promotional video can be posted on your website, shared via e-mail and e-newsletter, posted on YouTube and Vimeo, used as a video ad on a website like Hulu, among many other things. And while you can reach a large audience on television, you can reach a much more targeted and relevant audience online, not to mention the potential for a viral promotional video that reaches hundreds of thousands of viewers for “free”. According to Wyzowl statistics, 61% of businesses have started using video content marketing. 66% of these companies were not using video a year ago. This trend has progressed rapidly and will reach new heights sooner than we think. Video boosts conversion and sales; adding a product video on your landing page can increase conversions by 80%.  Trust is the foundation of conversions and sales. But building trust should be a goal on its own. The whole concept of content marketing is based on trust and creating long-term relationships. Stop selling and let the people come to you by providing them interesting and useful information.

Some of the best promo videos are enlisted below. Watch them and you shall know why it’s imperative for your company too:

Teforia:

Starbuck’s Coffee introduces new lemonade Teavana. This film made by India’s famous Wagh Bakri tea company depicts emotions, brand-knowledge, and warmth, everything that has made them special all along the way:

Red Label’s promotional film Forgotten emphasising their tagline #Tfortogetherness is a beautiful blend of emotions and tea:

 This was an analysis of various modern marketing techniques for your Tea business industry. if you would like to have a detailed discussion, please get in touch with us at hello@pixelsutra.com. We would be glad to assist you.