Product innovation: the past and present life of blended tea
Lipton has innovated tea from the product level from the beginning. In 1890, Sir Thomas Lipton, the founder of Lipton, went to Sri Lanka in search of high-quality tea. In Sri Lanka, he turned tea cultivation into a delicate and noble art, and the tea blended by him has a unique and refreshing flavor. Guided by the advertising slogan "Good tea straight from the tea garden to the teapot", Sir Lipton worked hard to make tea a popular drink among the British public, with high quality and affordable price.
In fact, the secret to Lipton's ability to maintain high quality tea for a long time lies in the blending of tea leaves. After blending, the quality and flavor of the tea leaves are more refined. Like wine, the quality and flavor of tea are determined by the region, climate conditions, altitude and soil structure where it is produced. No two teas are exactly the same, even if they come from the same place of origin. For example, the quality and flavor of tea produced in the same land will be very different if it is picked and processed on a rainy day and picked and processed on a sunny day. Therefore, it is normal for the same tea garden to produce tea of ??different qualities in a season. But Lipton has tea experts and tea blenders from all over the world. They are experienced and familiar with the science of tea art. Under their careful blending, they can strictly ensure the stable quality of tea and meet the established quality standards.
Lipton only uses tea leaves picked from the tops of the tea trees because they are the freshest and have the best taste, producing high-quality tea. In order to control product quality and ensure that he could obtain the best tea, Lipton began to have his own plantations in Sri Lanka from 1890. Currently, Lipton tea gardens are located in high-altitude areas near the equator in Kenya and Tanzania, where the temperature, sunshine, and rainfall can ensure the production of high-quality tea. The tea tree planting area of ??Lipton Tea Garden exceeds 11,000 hectares, and the annual green tea production is approximately 200,000 tons. Eleven factories have been set up in the manor to ensure that freshly picked tea leaves can be processed within two hours of picking. At the same time, Lipton also purchases high-quality tea leaves from 35 countries to ensure sufficient raw materials.
Lipton has established a professional tea research institute. From the initial processing of fresh tea leaves in the tea garden to the research and development of new products, Lipton has invested a lot of money in researching the health benefits of tea on the human body and the active ingredients of tea.
On the basis of product innovation and research and development, Lipton has brought a revolution to the tea industry by relying on tea blending technology and packaging technology, subverting the traditional way of drinking tea and avoiding the traditional tea brewing time. Disadvantages include long brewing process, complex brewing procedures, and difficult processing of tea residues. "While thoroughly solving the problems of standardization and mass production that are essential for tea as a modern commodity, the excellent quality of tea is maintained." Industry insiders believe that, in fact, it is these problems that hinder today's Chinese tea at a fundamental level. National and global brand development of industry original tea products.
Lipton uses tea blending to achieve large-scale, standardized, and industrialized production, breaking through many of the traditional tea requirements in terms of taste, origin, etc., and laying the foundation for the development of Lipton's global brand.
The practice of blending tea also solves another problem. Due to standardized production and unique packaging form, Lipton tea bags can enter the modern retail channel system like ordinary fast-moving consumer goods, which is precisely what Chinese tea companies are currently unable to achieve. Due to the characteristics of tea products themselves, as well as consumption habits and channel thresholds, the current main channels for tea sales in China are still tea specialty stores and tea wholesale markets. Without the support of modern retail channels, Chinese tea brands cannot quickly become bigger and stronger. Marketing innovation: targeted brand promotion
“In addition to superior product quality and solid brand foundation, Lipton has never slowed down its pace of understanding consumers and establishing communication with consumers.” said the person in charge of Lipton brand.
Tea culture, especially green tea culture, has been rooted in China for thousands of years. Under the influence of ancient tea culture, Chinese consumers have a very deep understanding of tea and the benefits of tea. Black tea originated in China and is exported to Europe and the United States, becoming an indispensable afternoon tea drink for Europeans and Americans. However, for today's Chinese consumers, Lipton black tea is obviously an imported product. As a brand with black tea as its core, Lipton has realized since entering China in 1992 that in order for Chinese consumers to understand and accept the Lipton brand, it must break through the traditional marketing methods of tea products.
The market opportunities for Lipton exist among the young people in modern cities. They are positive, like pop culture, pay attention to health, travel around in the busy nine-to-five life, and share every detail of their lives with their life and work partners.
“The current booming Internet applications and the need for emotional connection between people are what Lipton values. As a core product, Lipton tea bags are not just a simple office drink. We strive to be emotional. "Lipton found that modern cities are full of busy white-collar workers. Although they have a good income, their work is stressful; although they want to communicate with friends frequently, office life takes up a lot of their time. part time. Lipton regards black tea as a link between friends and brings closer relationships between colleagues through beautiful and relaxing office afternoon tea moments.
Following the successful tea delivery event in 2008, in October 2009, Lipton once again launched a free tea delivery event with the theme of "Enjoying Afternoon Tea" - as long as you simply register online, Lipton will provide tea for free. Your friend sends 3 pieces of brewed customized afternoon tea, allowing your friend to enjoy a pleasant afternoon tea moment with colleagues in the office. During the five weeks of the tea delivery event, hundreds of thousands of free Lipton tea boxes were given away, and the traffic on the official website of the event climbed to more than one million. More importantly, Lipton helps busy young people in the office communicate with their friends, and also reminds many young people of Lipton black tea during their relaxing afternoon tea - "the taste of black tea, you can create it as you like".
After black tea entered the Chinese market and established a solid brand foundation, Lipton launched Lipton milk tea according to the preferences of Chinese consumers. Lipton milk tea has won many consumers, especially young consumers, due to its smooth taste and warm qualities. Based on product characteristics and consumer needs, Lipton tries to connect the unique qualities of products with consumers' emotional needs.
As a result, Lipton began to play emotional marketing. In 2009, Lipton Milk Tea launched the "Lianlian Hug" online campaign, which combined product features and consumers' emotional needs. The theme of the "Lianlianhug" online activity is: feel the warmth of Lipton milk tea, give your friends a "hug", pass on the warmth of the "hug", and form a "hug chain" of warmth that will continue to be linked. The reason Lipton held this event was based on the theory of six degrees of separation: two strangers can be connected through up to six people. Through cooperation with the social network platform Renren, within two and a half months, the website of this event generated millions of unique user views and initiated more than 800,000 hugs, making it the most popular brand event held by Renren. one.
On the one hand, Lipton has established its brand image as a "world tea expert" among its target consumer groups. On the other hand, Lipton continues to introduce new products to bring healthy tea drinks and life attitude to consumers.
Through market research, Lipton found that 60% of Chinese consumers are not satisfied with their body shape. At the same time, as the pace of urban life accelerates, health has become one of the three major hidden worries of Chinese consumers. . In order to meet consumers' needs for a better body and health, Lipton Global R&D Center and Lipton Tea Research Institute launched Lipton Liya Tea, which is rich in catechins and can help healthy weight loss, after four years of research and development.
When promoting Liya tea, Lipton was different from other competing brands that used celebrities and exaggerated effects to attract consumers. On the contrary, Lipton believed that good products would have good reputation and invited 1,000 people Consumers can experience a course of product treatment within 8 weeks to witness the healthy weight loss effects of Liya Tea, allowing consumers to act as spokespersons for Liya Tea to promote the product and its effects.