Tata’s Tetley looks to take Green Tea message to the next rungs

What was the thinking behind the re-launch?

Tata Tetley green tea was launched in India a little over five years ago – much before it became as topical as it has become now. We spotted the trend very early and capitalised on it. In the last five years, we have found a fair amount of success and we have been able to perfect a portfolio of great products. We have flavours like tulsi and lemon, earl grey, cinnamon and honey and so on, that work wonderfully with consumers. Currently, there is so much of buzz happening around green tea and it is coming of age. But our understanding is that it is extremely popular amongst the more affluent and upper class India. So we are actually trying to spread the green tea message to all Indians as it is so relevant. Further, with income levels rising, lifestyle changes and increased consumption of junk food, all of these are affecting the health of people. Therefore, there is a need for wellness solutions that actually enable people to lead a healthy lifestyle.

Thus, we are trying to introduce everyone in India to the benefits of drinking green tea. So we are getting on board a Bollywood superstar who in many ways resonates the values of green tea. She is not only a successful icon but also believes in healthy living and in the power of green tea. She has a following that spreads from masses to classes.

What changes does the re-launch entail in terms of packaging and SKUs?

At this point of time, we are continuing to use the same packaging and the same portfolio of products as we believe that it works very well with consumers.

What are the platforms on which the re-launch will be promoted?

We did have a TVC four years ago. But for a long time we haven’t had a TVC for any Tetley offering. It’s not just about advertising with Kareena Kapoor on TV. It’s also about what we do in the digital space and we will be using other media as appropriate. We keep driving tasting of our products through trial generation. In the last six months, being the leading tea company in this country we have leveraged on the rest of our portfolio to organise trial sampling of our green tea products. We believe that post trial, consumers will switch to our green tea products and that will help us go a long way.

The brand has a highly successful Facebook page with 1,00,000 fans and the number of people in our community is continually rising. We are soon going to be launching our website and we work with 22 Feet.

What geographies would the re-launch target?

Kareena has an appeal across the country. So we are going to go pan-India but we will focus especially hard on the South market. This is because if you look at the South market, it tends to be an early test bed for newer categories and they tend to do better in the South. So we will focus on the South as well as go national. We are going to target urban India and the next level after the affluent class.

What was the thinking behind the ‘Insidewala snan’ campaign?

The tag line of the TVC is ‘Insidewalla snan’ (cleanse the interiors of the body). The genesis of the tag line is that when we asked consumers why they drank green tea, they said that it flushed the toxins out of their body and it contains a high level of antioxidants. And this is rightly so. We wanted to catch that thought with a line which is very catchy and we have been able to do it with ‘Insidewala snan.’ So drinking green tea helps them bathe their insides.