Portfolio
Tate and Lyle
- The campaign created mean 403% sales uplift at visited POS locations.
- All 44,000 “Little Books of Smiles” brand books distributed with product samples and offer coupons.
- Successful and heavily participated nationwide breakfast radio competition.
- Compelling start point for T&L’s new tip-sharing community.
- Using trend insight, with parent company developed a brand personality.
- The campaign deepened relationships with buyers, store managers and customers.
Tate and Lyle’s new sugar, Light Cane, ”40% less calories and all the taste” was something to get really excited about, we wanted to put it into Britain’s larders, where it belonged. But the retail environment and the section where first introductions would be made was too uncreative and inactive for a new addition to such a beloved brand.
We needed to discover a better place to meet. In Spring 2007, the renaissance of the more gentle things in life had just started to bubble. Tate and Lyle needed to be at the heart of the resurgence in the cake shop, home baking, street parties and summer fetes. Was there anything else that made people universally smile more than a cup of tea and a slice of cake? And if it contained 40% less calories, couldn’t you have your cake and eat it? This positioning also allowed us to expand from beverage sweetening territory to larger, more profitable usage opportunities.
The creative idea “the little things in life, which make you smile” ran throughout the entire campaign, it became the conversation starter for the radio competitions and the seed for building an on-line community of baking tip-sharers and smile makers through the campaign’s micro-site.
Our campaign focused on the Tate & Lyle tearoom, a village fete style cake tent incorporating the charm and nostalgia of the brand. It’s heritage was expressed through the look of the tent, the style of crockery – (Tate and Lyle chintz.) The smells of baking, the taste of tea and the sound of soothing music transported our visitors out of the supermarket car park and into an emotive and relaxing environment to channel the real advantages of Light Cane through the all-important taste test.
The Tate & Lyle cake tent gave this new product credibility in the cluttered lo-cal market. Choosing to give the consumer an unexpected and memorable pleasure that also relayed the trustworthiness and heritage of the product, thereby rekindling the special relationship between Tate and Lyle and its market. Our collaborations with like-minded brands such as Tetley’s and sourcing local bakeries to supply stock, we offered a home-grown quality to this exciting new product.
To date, we’ve organised two tour’s, the first concentrated on point of purchase; stopping outside 30 Sainsbury’s and Morrison’s stores nationwide. The second exploiting the heavy footfall in Shopping Centres. “Smile teams” greeted shoppers and invited them to sample our fine teas and cakes, all baked with light cane. Instead of a bill, customers went away with “little book of smiles”.