clipper tea

Clipper Tea’s ’clever and humorous ad won particular praise from the judges of this year’s awards

Clipper Tea has been awarded Best Campaign in The Grocer Top Campaigns of 2016.

The campaign featured an outdoor and transport campaign that Clipper said reached 90% of adults across London and the South East. It also produced an online video shot inside Clipper’s Truthful Green Tea Shop.

Judges loved the “clever and humorous” ad where “real and unsuspecting customers were offered ‘bitter’, ‘mean’, ‘chemically enhanced’ and ‘unfairtrade’ green teas by a bubbly girl behind the tea counter. Filming her deadpan sales patter and customers’ horrified reactions, the commercial spoke directly about the qualities and characteristics of Clipper tea, but with a clever and humorous twist, in which it presented the reverse.”

They also noted the effectiveness of the outdoor campaign and praised its timing to capitalise on the annual new year sales uplift for herbal teas.

“Clipper is a true challenger brand,” said Gill Green, marketing director at Wessanen UK, which owns the Clipper brand.

“Our 2016 Green Tea campaign ‘the truthful green tea shop’ was developed to demonstrate the product difference between Clipper and other green teas. It was a fun campaign with a deliberately hard message. We are delighted to be recognised in this way by The Grocer”.

Other notable winners included Aldi’s Team GB campaign, winner of Best Supermarket Campaign. It leveraged the deal to great effect in terms of licensing and publicity, but also returned stellar metrics, including a 20% uplift in fresh food sales. It also won praise from the Children’s Food Foundation for promoting fresh food.

“Our partnership with Team GB has been fantastic for Aldi and has really resonated with our customers,” said Mary Dunn, communications director at Aldi. “The association is all about helping our customers to live healthy lifestyles through access to fresh quality food at unbeatable prices. Team GB’s success at the Olympic Games was a real highlight of 2016 and we’re proud to have extended our support to Team GB until Tokyo 2020.”

Meanwhile, M&S scooped Best Supermarket Christmas Campaign for its Mrs Claus ad after judges said the ad was “beautifully shot, festive without too much syrupy sweetness, and sprinkled with just the right amount of humour. A truly memorable last spot for agency RKCR/Y&Y after it was unceremoniously dropped by the brand in August.”

Ira Dubinsky, M&S’s head of marketing for Christmas, said the “Christmas with Love campaign starring Mrs Claus was the result of thousands of conversations with customers, putting their feedback at the very heart of the strategy. We wanted Mrs Claus to help us make every moment special for customers, and their feedback tells us she has. Over 45,000 people have tweeted #LoveMrsClaus and 15,000 customers received an act of Mrs Claus kindness in store - from a tin of biscuits to a glass of bubbly. We’re delighted our Christmas with Love campaign has been recognised by The Grocer and we’re looking forward to starting work on Christmas 2017”.