Marketing can be innovative, misleading, mindless and mundane.Brooke Bond are
perhaps most well known for their numerous 'PG Tips family' adverts, which
featured a family of chimps, extolling the virtues of a 'PG Tips cuppa', who
also happened to be less dysfunctional than the average human families watching.
The PG Tips family was undeniably successful as a campaign, but it did draw
criticism from Animal Rights groups and others who were aghast at the
exploitation of our closest animal relative.
After many years though, the battle between continuing with the monkey antics
and suffering public pressure came to an end, and their services have been
put on hold. Unilever Bestfood UK ( of which Brooke Bond is now a part ) say the
chimps haven't been replaced, and the later adverts are not a result of pressure
by Animal Rights groups, but simply a step to "contemporarise PG Tips".
Perhaps so, or maybe the only remaining storyline showed our 'Brooke Bond
ambassadors' in their normally captive environment, caged, and masturbating
furiously to relieve their boredom ? Not something the average family wishes
to witness during dinner.
Without the monkeys, PG Tips advertising falls back into the unnoticeable bland
background of brand marketing on our televisions. The PG Tips brand only
surged in the market place with the introduction of a pyramid shaped tea bag.
Remarkably successful, not only due to the unique and distinctive shape, but
because the new style bags actually made for better tea, PG Tips has stormed on
to continue being one of Britain's favourite brands; and the one which
continues to be my own preference of choice.
Having introduced the pyramid shaped tea bag as PG Tips 'unique
selling point' ( "The tetrahedral shaped tea bag is a trademark used under
licence" ), I can't say that I can recall any PG Tips advertising
since, so it must have been entirely subconscious when I read the marketing
blurb on the packet of PG Tips I was opening.
What I read I found quite surprising. Never have I read such meaningless and
misleading sales scribble ...
"Did you know, PG Tips is a great source of fluid & can count towards the
6 to 8 cups of fluid you need every day !"
Well, actually, "PG Tips" is not a source of fluid at all; it's a dry paper
bag, perforated and filled with tea leaves. These are "tea bags", they've been
around for years. You can suck on a PG Tip's tea bag ( or 'Pyramid Bag' as
they would like us to call it ) for as long as you want, and you will get
precious little fluid out of one. If you're travelling across a dessert, I
wouldn't suggest relying on them as your only source of liquid intake.
Of course the marketing department would have us believe that, "Having a PG
Tips", is as synonymous with, "Having a cup of tea", as hoovering is to
pushing a vacuum cleaner around the house, but if that was the case, they
wouldn't be selling tea bags, they'd be selling cups of tea. What they are
selling is an ingredient which goes towards making that cup of tea.
To make a cup of tea, and, "Enjoy PG Tips at its best", if you follow the
instructions on the side of the package, you, "use one bag per cup, add freshly
boiled water and allow to infuse". There's an ongoing debate as to whether
milk and sugar should go in before the water, or after, but all are agreed
that we have a cup of tea when the tea bag is removed, and it's ready to drink.
Unilever tell us that drinking this cup of tea will go towards fulfilling our
daily requirement to drink between 6 and 8 cups of fluid.
Well, knock me down with a tea bush; I never realised that drinking liquids
helped us keep our fluid intake up. I'm indebted forever for that useful
information.
The PG Moment web site actually
clarifies what the marketing snippet means ...
"A cup of PG is made up of hot water with a small amount of tea infused with
hot water, nothing else".
Well, apart from milk, sugar, honey or whiskey as you're so inclined, but I'll
accept that the most basic ingredients are tea leaves and water. They then go on
to explain ...
"This means it's a valuable part of your daily fluid intake. In fact, it can
count towards the 6-8 cups of fluid you need every day. You might wonder how
this can be when tea contains caffeine, which can act as a diuretic. However,
the amount of tea is relatively low and balanced against the fluid intake from
each cup, the amount of water in each cup of tea more than makes up for any
diuretic effect."
So there we have it, the full admission. It is the water in the tea
which makes up the fluid intake, not the PG Tips. Indeed, the tea, acting
as a diuretic, actually lessons the effectiveness of that fluid intake, but only
very slightly.
The claim on a packet of PG Tips is somewhat different to what they say on
their website.
Perhaps it's time for the marketing department to write the truth; "You're
technically better off drinking straight water to keep up your daily fluid
intake, but PG Tips makes for a wonderful flavour enhancer to hot water".
Doesn't quite have the same ring to it though, does it ?
