Leading soft drinks manufacturer Britvic is launching a million pound summer marketing push for Lipton Ice Tea, the soft drink driving the Cold Hot Drink category. In order to get more consumers trying the brand and drive sales for retailers / licensees / food service operators, Lipton Ice Tea has adopted the tag-line ‘Don’t knock it, until you’ve tried it’. Fronted by a yet to be revealed celebrity, the brand’s new marketing drive will include a massive national sampling programme, a targeted PR campaign and digital activity to raise awareness, engage with consumers and drive purchase rates.
From the beginning of June, the summer campaign will see Britvic send a Lipton Ice Tea team around the country getting one million samples directly into consumers’ hands driving trial. The 2011 roll-out, coupled with last year’s campaign, which won Gold at the Brand Experience awards, marks Britvic’s largest ever single brand consumer sampling initiative.
The second part of the direct-to-consumer activity will see Britvic set up ‘knokkers’1 games and sampling stations in around nine of the UK’s largest city centres and parks. This year the best Lipton Ice Tea brand ambassadors found via sampling, will be awarded £250 worth of Red Letter vouchers every day. This will enhance the engagement over the nine week summer period, helping to further grow the Cold Hot Drink, which is the fastest growing sub-category, up 85% in volume*.
The campaign will be supported by the launch of a dedicated UK Facebook page for Lipton Ice Tea (Facebook.com/LiptonUK) to ensure that consumers remain engaged with the brand all year round. The national consumer PR campaign will encourage consumers to enter a competition to win red letter day vouchers. All consumers have to do is nominate a family member or friend to try something they’ve previously never done before on the Lipton Ice Tea Facebook page.
Britvic will use a dedicated retail team focused on cafes, delis and the grocery channel to support the successful merchandising of Lipton Ice Tea in outlet. It will also be enlisting the help of dedicated retail squads to deliver POS material to retailers, including a pop up banners and die cut stands, a cooler bag for chilled product and branded t-shirts.
New Glass Bottle
Lipton Ice Tea is now also available for the first time in a 250ml glass format at an MRRP of £1.90. Perfectly suited for licensed and food service outlets, the brand is being seeded at launch in a small number of accounts in cases of 24 bottles in both Lemon and Peach flavours. Lipton Ice Tea is available in a 500ml PET format for retailers in the two flavour variants at an MRRP of £0.99 to £1.29.
Small brand punching above it’s weight
Jon Evans, Head of Seed Brands at Britvic, commented
“We are really excited to be launching the biggest ever version of ‘Don’t Knock It’ this summer. We know from our research that most consumers don’t think they will like it before they’ve tried it but once sampled around 80% go on to buy which is equal to the very best brands in the market! We recommend that retailers / licensees / foodservice operators take advantage of the growing popularity of Lipton Ice Tea.”