“We just don’t have anything newsworthy.” That is the cry I hear from so many companies that have products that are in crowded markets or products that seem somewhat mundane. This is what Salada Tea, makers of one of the world’s oldest products could have said, but they didn’t. Realizing that their ancient beverage stands at the intersection of several modern trends, they set out on their “Unbottle Your Tea” campaign with the assistance of marketing communications agency, Pinckney Hugo Group.
In the last several years environmental stewardship, frugality, and healthy living have been some of the hottest topics in the media and blogosphere, and Salada realized that “unbottled” tea reduces the amount of material in the waste stream, by eliminating bottles and saves money as brewing tea from tea bags is much less expensive than buying bottled, ready-to-drink tea. In addition, there has been lots of recent scientific evidence that tea (especially green tea) is good for you. A PR goldmine-if executed properly, and Salada and Pinckney Hugo did just that.
The goals for their campaign include: increasing the sales and awareness of
Salada teas; stimulating trial and usage of their products; promoting new green tea flavors; and building an online database of consumers for future promotional efforts. The primary target market for this campaign was women over the age of thirty-five. To achieve these goals they reached out to traditional media as well as bloggers; used YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook extensively, conducted a media tour where a brand spokesperson went on the road visiting media outlets; extended the integrated marketing campaign to include media sponsorship with Prevention Magazine for fitness-oriented events (and to distribute samples), and held in-store promotions.
The results were outstanding and exceeded their optimistic expectations. A few of the measurable highlights of this campaign were:
· Initial coverage by New York Times’ Media & Advertising, PR Week and AdWeek
· Media coverage reaching nearly 600 stories and nearly 80 millionunweighted media impressions
· More than 2,200 consumers visited the Unbottle Web site
· The Media tour landed 17 TV interviews with Salada spokesperson along with supporting print and online coverage
· Increased sales in target markets followed tour appearances
· More than 98,000 samples of Salada were distributed at sponsored health events
· More than 4,000 people requested a free sample in response to an e-newsletter sponsorship
· New flavors were highlighted in all TV appearances and blog reviews
· Awareness was generated prior to in-store availability driving demand for new flavors
· UBYT Web site has attracted more than 355,000 unique visitors, 547,000 page views and 2.8 million hits since its launch
· Salada and UBYT campaign were featured in more than 100 audience-appropriate blogs
· Salada collected more than 120,000 e-mail addresses from promotions and giveaways
Wow, and this is just a sample of what this campaign achieved. Here is a sample from their YouTube site. Be sure to check out their sample of media mentions and list of blog coverage in the “News” section of the Unbottle Your Tea microsite. Their Facebook fan page, and Twitter site are also worth a look. Doing PR right is crucial in any business. Use this as an example and please share it with your friends and colleagues.
In the last several years environmental stewardship, frugality, and healthy living have been some of the hottest topics in the media and blogosphere, and Salada realized that “unbottled” tea reduces the amount of material in the waste stream, by eliminating bottles and saves money as brewing tea from tea bags is much less expensive than buying bottled, ready-to-drink tea. In addition, there has been lots of recent scientific evidence that tea (especially green tea) is good for you. A PR goldmine-if executed properly, and Salada and Pinckney Hugo did just that.
The goals for their campaign include: increasing the sales and awareness of
Salada teas; stimulating trial and usage of their products; promoting new green tea flavors; and building an online database of consumers for future promotional efforts. The primary target market for this campaign was women over the age of thirty-five. To achieve these goals they reached out to traditional media as well as bloggers; used YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook extensively, conducted a media tour where a brand spokesperson went on the road visiting media outlets; extended the integrated marketing campaign to include media sponsorship with Prevention Magazine for fitness-oriented events (and to distribute samples), and held in-store promotions.
The results were outstanding and exceeded their optimistic expectations. A few of the measurable highlights of this campaign were:
· Initial coverage by New York Times’ Media & Advertising, PR Week and AdWeek
· Media coverage reaching nearly 600 stories and nearly 80 millionunweighted media impressions
· More than 2,200 consumers visited the Unbottle Web site
· The Media tour landed 17 TV interviews with Salada spokesperson along with supporting print and online coverage
· Increased sales in target markets followed tour appearances
· More than 98,000 samples of Salada were distributed at sponsored health events
· More than 4,000 people requested a free sample in response to an e-newsletter sponsorship
· New flavors were highlighted in all TV appearances and blog reviews
· Awareness was generated prior to in-store availability driving demand for new flavors
· UBYT Web site has attracted more than 355,000 unique visitors, 547,000 page views and 2.8 million hits since its launch
· Salada and UBYT campaign were featured in more than 100 audience-appropriate blogs
· Salada collected more than 120,000 e-mail addresses from promotions and giveaways
Wow, and this is just a sample of what this campaign achieved. Here is a sample from their YouTube site. Be sure to check out their sample of media mentions and list of blog coverage in the “News” section of the Unbottle Your Tea microsite. Their Facebook fan page, and Twitter site are also worth a look. Doing PR right is crucial in any business. Use this as an example and please share it with your friends and colleagues.
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