It’s no surprise it’s the coffee brands that have increased ad spend the most in the past year.

Following a string of failed court cases to protect its coffee pods and with the market awash with copycat capsules, Nespresso has spent 8,074% more on advertising in the last 12 months, and its rivals aren’t far behind.

Carte Noire, which launched Nespresso compatible pods in February, upped ad spend by 4,309% while Douwe Egberts increased its budget by 350%, amounting to a significant share of the £31.5m spend by hot beverages’ top 10 advertisers - a rise of 15% [Ebiquity 52 w/e 31 May 2014].

MediaTOTAL CinemaOutdoorPress
Brands Spend (£) Y-O-Y % % %
Nescafe £9,628,273 0 0 0 6.30%
Twinings £3,931,107 1 0 0 6.50%
Tetley £3,170,576 0 0 0 0.70%
PG Tips £3,816,215 0 0 0 14.70%
Nespresso £2,373,621 807 0 0 19.30%
Carte Noire £2,155,925 43 8.00% 28.80% 10.00%
Douwe Egberts £1,964,520 4 0.00% 3.10% 16.80%
Taylors of Harrogate £1,945,870 2 0.00% 6.50% 20.00%

Of course Hollywood heavyweights don’t come cheap. Nespresso spent £2.3m focussing on TV ads featuring brand ambassadors George Clooney and Matt Damon and Carte Noire ploughed £2.1m into TV ads and outdoor advertising including a ‘window of intensity’ at London’s Westfield shopping centre for its Instinct wholebean instant brand.

The installation featured a five metre-wide interactive screen with CGI effects illustrating the intensity inside every tin of Carte Noire. Effects included trails of colour and crystallising patterns; the closer the user to the window, the more intense the experience.

With the coffee brands spending big money to impress, tea players are sticking to old favourites.

PG Tips Monkey ad

PG Tips used its iconic monkey to front TV ads for its new range of fruit & herbal and green teas while Tetley’s much-loved Tea Folk featured in the brand’s first digital campaign for its green teas.

The company, which is the only tea brand to cut spend in the past year, is betting £100,000 on banner ads on websites including The Daily Mail, Marie Claire and WeightWatchers from September. The ad shows Tea Folk’s Gaffer lying on a bed of tea leaves with nothing but the leaves to preserve his modesty.

Tetley green tea range

“Green teas are among the key growth areas in tea and we know that shoppers respond well to adverts featuring the Tea Folk,” says Andrew Pearl , director of customer and shopper marketing at Tetley.

Twinings is hoping those shoppers respond well to ads targeting working women between the ages of 25 and 45. The company has increased ad spend by 78.8% to £3.9m to increase trial of its herbal infusions range as an alternative to water.

The ‘Make Work Wonderful’ campaign included ads on The Huffington Post UK’s Lifestyle section to ‘lift the working day spirit’ from March.

Read more of our Hot Beverages Report 2014

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