<b>Campaign Logic:</b> Hero-ising a healthy beverage

Tetley's ad claims vitamins-filled Super Green Tea can help one live up to superhero expectations

Brand: Tetley

Budget: Rs 10-12 crore

Agency: Mullen Lintas

Green tea is not everyone’s cup of tea, given its health connotations which resonate with a strict regimen few may genuinely wish to embrace. This is precisely also why as a product category, it offers enormous scope for the advertiser to promise healthy living. Or, as Tetley has done with its new advertisement, promise healthiness reserved for those with “superhuman” capabilities.

The television commercial features Saurav Ganguly as himself, in a light-hearted take to show how the newly launched Tetley Super Green Tea is filled with qualities that can help the ace cricketer to live up to superhero expectations even after he has retired.

In the opening frame, the actress playing Ganguly’s wife tells a friend the Tetley Super Green Tea is in the household as ordinary people still consider him to be the “Prince of Kolkata”. Ganguly is next shown sipping the tea with a faint head shake. A series of comic sequences follow, such as a milkman shouting “Dada” and hurling a milk pouch in the morning like a bowler in his delivery stride or a stranger at a shopping mall similarly throwing a toy to test the cricketer’s catching skills even though he is in an escalator with shopping bags in both hands. His wife then explains that when expectations from him are so high even the green tea has to be “super” for Ganguly. The half-a-minute-long ad ends with the product details of the new variants — Super Green Tea Boost and Immune filled with Vitamin B6 and Vitamin C respectively — and the catchline, “Roz ke super humans ke liye”.

Sushant Dash, regional president, India, Tata Global Beverages, says that from a marketing point of view the company wanted to address a misconception that green tea is just another fad meant for weight loss. “We have never believed in that. Yes, if you do it the right way and if you have green tea along with making other lifestyle changes it will help you to lose weight. But it is more about a healthy choice and being body-positive. And we believe that in green tea we can grow the category by talking about its overall health benefits.”

He explains green tea is known for health benefits like antioxidants, but the new product has added vitamins and “become a superhero of the green tea category”. The idea of the campaign sprang from this, as multiple skills are demanded of people today. And Ganguly — with a long and chequered career behind him and then having to meet expectations as a sports administrator, commentator and a public figure — was a appropriate choice, he adds.

The ad, made at an estimated budget of Rs 10-12 crore, was conceptualised by Mullen Lintas. Shriram Iyer, national creative director, Mullen Lintas, says, “Consumers are becoming increasingly health-conscious. While they might want to get healthier, the pressures of their lifestyle might not allow them to do so in a disciplined manner. With the Super Green Teas we wanted to connect to people who are striving to live up to superhuman expectations.

“A superhero product is needed most for the regular people who are constantly faced with superhuman expectations. To give a creative spin to this, we looked at an insight of sports celebrities, of whom people always expect the same superhuman feats that they once performed on the field, no matter what stage of life they are in now.”

When asked, Iyer points out that the previous Tetley campaign highlighted its green tea as a natural way to cleanse oneself. “The new campaign, due to the product’s higher-order benefits, stands for much more.”

Dash estimates that the size of the Indian tea market is around Rs 22,000-23,000-crore, while green tea comprises a minuscule segment of Rs 300-350 crore. Tetley has over 35 per cent volume share in the green tea segment.

Dash adds that the Super Green Tea campaign, which was flagged off in the mainstream digital channels for eight weeks starting last month, is also about increasing penetration in the category. “Green tea is still only one per cent in terms of overall penetration. The idea is to increase it to around four to five per cent in the next three years. That is what we want to achieve as market leaders.”