Tea commercials

[mbanu]

A 1950s American-targeted one from Canada's Salada Tea:



This one is a little interesting because the ending slogan, "America's 'Quality' Tea", seems likely from an older ad campaign idea. Maybe not obvious, but by the way the announcer pronounced "quality" at the end, he was likely using the term in the 1920s Emily Post type of definition, where quality was a euphemism for high social class, a bit out of place with the rest of the ad. For a social-class based ad, one would have expected a different tone than ice-skating clocks, impatient ice-cubes, and singing jingles. I think they originally wanted to just use the "Enjoy Yourself" slogan from the middle. Perhaps the ending slogan was the boss's idea?

Tea-ads that inherit something from previous ads are interesting in their own way.



This 1989 Barry's Tea ad from Ireland had to work around the old-timey cartoon tea-wallah that Barry's was still using as their mascot.

"Enjoy Yourself" and cartoon tea-wallah combine in this MTV ad -- I wish I knew more about it. YouTube comments suggest it was shown in the early 2000s on MTV Brasil, but nothing about its origin...

*Edit: Apparently a 1998 collaboration between Cyrus Oshidar and Siraj Jhaveri for MTV India: https://www.adeevee.com/1998/02/mtv-chai-boy-film/

The ad was worked up out of a memory:

And the chaiboy? A slice from his past. A cheerful little kid who used to serve everybody tea at Ambience. The Hindi film song Yeh Jawani hai diwani used to add a dash of joy to the grim reality of the boy’s life.

(https://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2006/1 ... me-to-him/)

[mbanu]

I suppose related to these MTV ads is the general category of "How is this an ad?" ads where it is maybe not clear what is being promoted other than a feeling, or where the product is not so clear. People tend to have strong opinions on these sorts of ads, as they tend to win awards but not increase sales.

In MTV's case I suppose it works because people remember where they saw it, and that is the point. The question then is how far down that translates.

For instance, an artist in Singapore did this video for a promotional challenge:



What it is for is never mentioned. If people remember that they saw it on Pek Sin Choon's YouTube channel, then I suppose it is a success. On the other hand, unlike with cable-TV in the 90s, it is much easier to pull a video out of its channel and post it elsewhere today -- If instead they remember, "Ah, I saw this on TeaForum-", well...

[Victoria]

Great techno tea video and the aluminum vests!

[mbanu]

I suppose related to these MTV ads is the general category of "How is this an ad?" ads where it is maybe not clear what is being promoted other than a feeling, or where the product is not so clear. People tend to have strong opinions on these sorts of ads, as they tend to win awards but not increase sales.

Twinings had this issue with their domestic ads, like this 1980s one:



Their Japanese ads were a bit more straightforward, like explaining "one for the pot":

[LeoFox]

[mbanu]

Meanwhile, a "not your parents' tea!" type of ad for boxed Vita lemon tea in 1987.

I think "not your parents' tea!" was their main tactic in the late 80s, as they tried to reinvent themselves from their old image of being a soymilk company. Here's another VLT ad from 1988:



*Edit: Interesting commentary on this from Dr. Ng Chun Hung at HKU:

[mbanu]

Maybe a lost-in-translation commercial, but this one from 1991 might help explain why so many American men often seem uneasy about the idea of using small teapots. Using pretend tea-parties as a gendered way to teach social skills to little girls was a common practice for many years.




Sometimes toy teasets were sold as tie-ins for dolls -- these two ads are over 30 years apart, but the idea is the same.

[mbanu]

Compare maybe with Lipton USA in 1994, trying to convince Americans that drinking tea could be manly:

Apparently this was successful enough for bottled tea to cause some marketing problems in 2021, leading to a split -- consider Lipton USA's two new ads, running at around the same time, where the man chugs while the woman sips:

It looks like in 1993 they tried a ladies' version of "This Ain't No Sippin' Tea!" -- was this run at the same time as the Bo ad, or was the Bo ad a re-work?



Gatorade had their own chug-a-tea moment in 1993 (although it contained enough other ingredients that it had to call itself an "iced tea cooler" rather than just iced tea):

[mbanu]

I get a kick out of this 1988 Tetley promo -- American Anglophiles are uneasy around Teasmades, but a musical mug with cartoon mascots would have been pure poison to the image of British elegance, especially in 1988.

Tetley seemed to have a real knack for this -- in 1994 they decided to do a movie tie-in with The Flintstones.

[TeaGrove]

Tetley also made a Sleeping Beauty commercial in 1992.



They really knew how to get the boys and girls curious about their tea!

[mbanu]

Ah, I see this has been moved to "News, Publications, & Research".

Interesting things going on with Canadian tea by 1995, as apparently a tea could be a tea if it was a caffeine-free frozen concentrate flavored like something else, although we do see a return of the Red Rose style dancing tea-man.

[mbanu]

A Moroccan lifestyle-branding commercial for Sultan green tea.

Maybe interesting to compare, a 2022 Egyptian lifestyle-branding commercial for Rabea black tea.

[mbanu]

Or Brooke Bond Super Dust, a name that would have seemed very odd outside of India, but that worked quite well inside for describing a fresh dust-grade tea liked by a variety of tea-drinkers.

A Brooke Bond India from today, for comparison:

[the_dalu]

Some Dilmah ads. There are plenty of them.

[the_dalu]

Japanese ice tea ad filmed in Sri Lanka.