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 from Wessanen UK, is launching a three-tiered summer sampling campaign for its green tea range, designed to position the brand as the “Queen of Greens.”

The Fairtrade brand, which currently produces more than 15 green tea variants, will distribute over 250,000 samples of its flagship Pure Green Tea throughout July. The campaign will feature a mixture of face-to-face hit squads, office-based sampling and free samples in ASOS mail deliveries.

BEcause Experiential Marketing has been hired to mastermind the live hit squad aspect of the campaign. An all-female ‘Clipper Crew’ of green tea ‘queens’ in flower-chain crowns, will tour high-footfall outdoor areas within the M25 over nine days of live activity, distributing samples from bicycles and trailers with simple, rustic charm. Public spaces around Wimbledon Park showing the tennis championships on giant screens will be amongst the areas targeted.

To support the hit squad activity, Clipper has engaged GemsAtWork to manage an office-based sampling campaign, whilst Response One has been tasked with coordinating free samples in all mail order deliveries from online fashion retailer ASOS throughout July.

The new campaign aims to champion the delicious, natural taste of Clipper’s Green Tea range as well the health benefits of green tea, and the company’s ethical heritage. It builds on the brand’s quirky Truthful Green Tea Shop pop-up activation earlier this year, which took a humorous hidden camera approach to highlight the difference between Clipper’s green teas and those produced by many other manufacturers.

Gill Green, Marketing Director at Wessanen UK, comments: “Demand for green tea continues to boom, yet within this highly-competitive marketplace we believe our green tea reigns supreme. This concerted sampling drive will allow us to directly reach potential customers that may not have experienced our great-tasting tea before, and to introduce them to our range of delicious, all natural flavours. It is also an opportunity to chat with consumers about the difference they can make to the lives of tea workers and their families, just by drinking a cup of Fairtrade tea from Clipper.”

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