STRAIGHT UP TEA
Launched under the Snapple brand in 2014, Straight Up Tea was ready to lose the parent brand and flavor equity of Snapple and venture out into the unflavored tea category as its own brand. Straight Up Tea is an all natural, unflavored tea available in three levels of sweetness; unsweet, sorta sweet, and sweet. Available in bottles at grocery and C-stores.
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CATEGORY
CPG, food and beverage
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OBJECTIVE
Identify a clear position in the unflavored tea category for Dr Pepper Snapple Group's (now Keurig Dr Pepper) brand, Straight Up Tea.
PROBLEM
The unflavored tea category, although booming, was a branded sea-of-sameness. Straight Up Tea needed a unique voice and brand to break out of the noise of manicured tea fields and slow, summery, over-ice pour shots – particularly when looking at the untapped audiences. In this case, younger Millennials/older Gen Z.
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Launched under its 'flavorful big brother', Snapple, Straight Up Tea was ready to differentiate from the parent brand and take on the rapidly-growing unflavored tea category as an independent brand. Due to being launched under Snapple, Straight Up Tea didn't exist independently in any research or reporting databases and with a limited budget, primary research was out of the question.
Looking to the rest of the unflavored tea category also wasn't an option because the category is full of normative imagery and the same target audience, not ideal for a brand trying to differentiate.
RESEARCH
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Existing consumption, media and positioning research from DPSG
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Review of Straight Up Tea's brand personality, tone, and messaging standards
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Competitive audits of digital touchpoints, messaging and positioning of direct competitors (Pure Leaf, Gold Peak, Honest Tea, Lipton)
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CubeYou digital audience research
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MRI/Simmons syndicated research
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Personality brand digital engagement and target audience audits
PROCESS
We decided to differentiate in the category based on Straight Up Tea's unique brand personality and tone (direct, in-the-know, provocative, approachable, dry humor). We took brands outside of the tea category that mirrored Straight Up Tea's unique personality (Old Spice, New Castle Brown Ale, Taco Bell, Dollar Shave Club, Arby's, Wendy's) and aggregated the consumers who are engaging with them digitally.
Identifying key demographic and psychographic characteristics of audiences from those brands, Straight Up Tea clearly identified a target who would be open to a "personality" message from the brand and that other unflavored tea brands ignore.
SOLUTION
With our unique personality and opportunity to target younger consumers in the category,
we wanted creative that felt less like stereotypical iced tea and something that authentically fit in with the real user feeds of Millennial and older Gen Z tea drinkers.
Video
COPY: If you want the artificial stuff, keep scrolling. All natural Straight Up Tea.
COPY: Three refreshing choices when you thirst for all natural: Sweet, Unsweetened, and Sorta Sweet.