Ethical tea brand Clipper has launched a new nationwide initiative, the Clipper Tea Shop Awards, to champion both the wide variety of tea shops and the great experiences that those in the out-of-home market deliver to customers and has brought in Kirstie Allsopp, self-confessed tea lover and TV personality, as a judge.

Clipper, the Fairtrade and organic tea brand owned by Wessanen UK, is inviting any relevant food service outlet that serves Clipper Teas to submit an entry via a dedicated area on the Clipper website from now until August 11 2017.

There are six different categories to enter: Traditional Tea Shop, Quirkiest Tea Shop, Contemporary Tea Shop, Cosiest Tea Shop, Coastal Tea Shop and the Tea Shop that provides the Best Afternoon Tea.

Clipper will pick the top six entries – one from each category – with the help of Kirstie Allsopp. Each shortlisted entry will win a bundle of bespoke Clipper prizes and will then go through to the next stage, which will be a consumer vote.

Once the shortlist has been announced, the awards will be opened to an online public vote in September to decide which tea shop will ultimately be crowned the Clipper Best Tea Shop in the UK.

Clipper is investing in dedicated social media and consumer PR activity, amplified through its relationship with Kirstie, to raise awareness amongst consumers and encourage more votes. Voting consumers will also have the chance to win afternoon tea at the winning Tea Shop with Kirstie.

The well-known TV presenter will visit the winning establishment and present them with the prestigious Clipper Cup, a cash prize of £2,000 and a range of Clipper products.

Kirstie Allsopp says: “I’ve been a Clipper fan ever since the brand launched and I am honoured to be part of this competition. Tea Shops are an old and exquisite tradition here in the UK and I am excited to see where the awards will finally take me for an amazing cup of tea. I usually take mine with a dash of milk and no sugar.”

Adele Ward, Clipper Teas brand controller at Wessanen UK, adds: “The UK has some of best and most unique tea shops in the world. From the traditional to the quirky, we want to celebrate our nation’s finest tea shops and reward those who work so hard to provide a relaxing and enjoyable space to savour a cup of Clipper tea.”

All the top-rated tea shops which enter will also be included in the definitive Clipper Tea Guide which will celebrate the UK’s best cups of Clipper.

Tea shops can submit an entry via an online entry form, available at www.clipper-teas.com/tea-shop-awards/

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Clipper, the Fairtrade and organic tea brand owned by Wessanen UK, has launched the second phase of its Flavour that Sings campaign with an experiential event focusing on the superior taste of its everyday tea.

The launch event, which took place on May 23, included a unique tea tasting and a live performance from Clipper’s dedicated Flavour That Sings band, The Clipperettes.

Led by Clipper’s own tea tasters, master blender Dan and head of buying James and acclaimed flavour scientist Dr Rachel Edwards-Stuart, guests gathered in the Clipper tea tasting lounge for a fun and informative tea-tasting session to uncover the secret behind the superior taste of Clipper’s everyday tea range.

Consumers were given the opportunity to win tickets to the event through an engaging competition on Clipper’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram channels and joined key influencers, bloggers and media at the exclusive event in London.

The Clipperettes will be central to the Flavour That Sings activity this year. A three-piece female-vocal band formed by Clipper’s creative agency Aesop, they will be putting their own distinctive spin on some pop classics which will be shared across the brand’s social media channels.

The launch of a Flavour That Sings video coincides with a high-impact consumer competition on social for fans to win a live performance from The Clipperettes, either at their home or place of work. Offering a unique brand experience, the band will arrive complete with afternoon tea to enjoy while watching the performance.

The Flavour that Sings summer activity will conclude with an on-the-ground consumer sampling activity, taking 250,000 samples of Clipper’s Organic Everyday Tea to busy commuter areas around London, accompanied by The Clipperettes.

Adele Ward, Clipper Teas Brand Controller at Wessanen UK, says: “At Clipper we make it our mission to make the greatest-tasting tea. We source the best tea leaves from the world’s finest tea gardens across East Africa, India and Sri Lanka and work hard to perfect a beautifully balanced blend; creating a high-quality tea that delivers a fanfare of flavour. We never add anything artificial to any of our products – we don’t even bleach our tea bags. We like to let the flavour sing for itself.”

Ward adds: “Our Flavour that Sings campaign is aimed at winning us new fans by communicating the delicious taste of our everyday black tea. This has carried through from our initial outdoor advertising creative to the experiential activity we have planned with The Clipperettes over the summer. We want consumers to feel immersed and join in the melody. It’s all about enjoyment, and it reflects our brand personality: natural, bright and full flavour.”

The campaign began in January 2017 with a large-scale outdoor advertising activity which represented Clipper’s biggest-ever advertising drive. Bright and colourful, the eye-catching artwork targeted tea-drinkers across London and the South East, reaching 60% of the target audience (women aged 25-55).

Reflecting the award-winning tea producer’s commitment to natural, authentic values, the Flavour That Sings advert featured a three-dimensional collage of charming hand-crafted paper gramophones, tea cups and flowers objects displayed in a kaleidoscopic effect by Dutch artist Noa Verhofstad.

Clipper’s organic everyday tea is the brand’s biggest-selling product and is growing at 12% year-on-year (according to IRI).

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Clipper Teas, the Fairtrade tea brand owned by Wessanen UK, has launched a new on-pack promotion across its range of organic teas to reward existing fans and attract new customers to the brand.

The ‘With love from Clipper’ initiative incentivises purchases of Clipper’s Fairtrade Everyday Tea (£2.55 for 80 bags), Organic Everyday Tea (£2.60 for 80 bags) and Pure Green Tea (£2.79 for 80 bags). It offers fans the chance to own a series of limited edition tea caddies and tea towels, each featuring colourful designs linked to the established brand’s distinctive packaging. An online competition also provides the opportunity for tea-lovers to own the whole set.

The promotion looks to build on Clipper’s success as the UK’s fastest-growing black tea brand; Clipper has grown its value sales by 8% in the last 12 months (IRI w/e 8 October 2016). It also takes place during Clipper’s 20th anniversary of selling Fairtrade green tea in UK supermarkets.

“Life’s too short for bad tea,” comments Gill Green, Marketing Director at Wessanen UK. “Quality drives everything we do here at Clipper, from the way in which we source our tea right through to the experience that our customers receive when purchasing. We’re committed to getting tea from crop to cup in the best possible way.”

Gill Green adds: “We know how important it is to keep tea in tip-top condition; that’s why we have designed this limited edition range of caddies and tea towels to reward and delight fans of our brand.”

Sourced from some of the world’s finest tea estates across East Africa, India and Sri Lanka, Clipper’s signature teas have been blended and packed in Dorset since Clipper first launched in 1984. Clipper was the first UK tea brand to carry the Fairtrade mark in 1994, and has been fiercely committed to ethical tea sourcing ever since.

The Fairtrade tea brand owned by Wessanen UK believes that “life’s too short for bad tea”

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Fairtrade green tea brand Clipper Teas is running a ‘New Year Revolutions’ integrated campaign with outdoor and transport advertising and a ‘money back’ promotion to encourage consumers to ‘turn over a new leaf’ in 2016.

Clipper Teas, owned by Wessanen UK, wants to attract both new green tea ‘considerers’ and existing green tea drinkers to the brand.

The two-pronged campaign will feature a heavyweight outdoor and transport campaign together with a playful online video shot using hidden cameras inside ClipperTeas’ very own ‘Truthful Green Tea Shop’.

Throughout January, consumers will be able to trial Clipper’s range of green tea packs with the reassurance of a ‘tastes great or your money bank’ promotional guarantee. The brand’s extensive promotional activity aims to ensure that new green tea drinkers become Clipper Teas drinkers this January.

The outdoor campaign will reach 90% of adults across London and the South East during January. The YouTube video, which light-heartedly questions some of the processes and ethics behind other green teas, will be shared extensively via bloggers and social media. Clipper Teas expects over 1 million people to watch the video during 2016.

The planned activity aims to attract new green tea ‘considerers’ as well as existing green tea drinkers to the Clipper Teas brand, capitalising on the annual sales uplift that is typically seen within the green tea market in the first month of the year.

Green tea has long been ClipperTeas heartland. 2015 saw the company add another 100,000 new green tea consumers and grow its total green tea penetration by 15%, according to Kantar Worldpanel figures.

“The green tea market has seen considerable growth over the past three years as healthy living continues to rise up the consumer agenda. But consumer concern over bitter-tasting green tea still remains,” said Rebecca Vercoe, Clipper Teas brand controller at Wessanen UK. “We’re looking to address this by introducing an even wider audience to the distinctively light and fresh, Clipper green tea taste profile.”

A recent Clipper Teas research study found that the single biggest barrier to green tea adoption was the perception that consumers were not going to like the taste. The company’s acquisition campaign looks to challenge this with a range of creative activations focused on taste.

Vercoe explains: “We believe that the more natural the tea, the more natural the taste. Clipper uses only young leaves and works closely with experienced growing partners to delicately process these, with nothing artificial added along the way. This means light, delicate and refreshing tea, with no bitter after-taste. The last thing we want is for new green tea drinkers to buy a green tea and then be put off forever, either because it doesn’t deliver on taste or it has a nasty after-taste due to poor processing, artificial flavourings or fortification.”

The new outdoor campaign has been created by Big Fish. The Truthful Green Tea Shop was conceived, produced and filmed by Exposure.

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