Create a new product innovation for Yorkshire Tea

 

Background:

Britain is a nation of tea drinkers but over the years the number of mainstream black tea drinkers has been on the decline. Shoppers are buying less volume, less often and many are switching to coffee.

The mainstream teabag market is dominated by PG Tips, Tetley, Yorkshire Tea, Twinings and supermarket’s own brand tea with increasing levels of promotional activity across the category. Within this, our Yorkshire Tea brand has seen excellent levels of growth (it’s the fastest growing major tea brand) bucking the market trend with its ‘Proper Brew’ positioning and quality taste.

 

About the Audience:

The Yorkshire Tea audience is incredibly broad but with a core consumer profile of 35+ adults, split evenly between males and females). They range from a core group of 35-54 year olds who make up a large percentage of the mainstream tea market, through to 55+ who are strong brand advocates and have always drunk Yorkshire Tea.

Mainstream black tea is not as dominant within the 18-35 year old age group, which is something that we're very keen to change. When coming up with ideas, make sure that you put the younger audience at the heart of the product. 

About the Brand

What underpins all of the Yorkshire Tea drinkers is their love of a ‘Proper Brew’ and the knowledge that no matter where they buy it, it’s the same great taste – tea done properly.

A proper brew is Yorkshire Tea's unique taste. Consumers often tell us that we make strong tea or proper tea. But the fact is, we put more of it in the bag and use better quality blends than many other tea manufacturers. We take this principle of doing things properly and infuse it into everything that we do, from our packaging to our advertising to the way we work in our business. It's a Yorkshire honesty and integrity that is ingrained in the way we do things.

The brand sets itself apart in the tea category with advertising that celebrates tea drinking, a large and loyal social media following, and a fresh, quirky approach to everything it does.

 

The Creative Challenge:

Your challenge is to innovate around our product, and to design something (be it physical or experiential) that will engage and benefit our younger customers.

It can be a packaging or format idea, a new way to drink tea, something that adds to the tea drinking experience or even a simple design tweak to our existing product. Think about the tea drinking experience, how it can be improved but also how our consumers love a ‘Proper Brew’. This doesn’t have to be a revolution, small changes can be just as impactful. The important thing is bringing the product idea to life. Think about the different types of people within our target audience, and the times and environments that they are engaging with the product