Can a common drink make a revolution? Lipton Ice Tea believes it can—the tea brand is kicking off the summer ‘Teavolution’ campaign, aimed to reach younger generation of consumers, people aged 18-24, and bring the taste of cold tea to them this hot summer. The new promotion, which will roll across UK cities, Liverpool, Southampton, Swansea and Glasgow, landing in busy locations in these cities froom mid-June through August. The new activation, which is not fronted by the brand’s charming ambassador Hugh Jackman, uses the ‘Surprisingly tasty and refreshing’ strapline on the yellow and orange ‘rebellious’ print with a hand holding a bottle of the drink.

Photo: A poster from the Lipton Ice Tea ‘Teavolution’ campaign, www.thedrum.co.uk

The brand, which is owned by PepsiCo and Unilever, is targeting the young audience with ice tea samples to provide consumers with an opportunity to taste the product they’ve probably never tried or remind some of them, who have drunk it before, that Lipton Ice Tea is a great summer refreshing product. “Our new campaign will include over 1million samples given out in areas across the country, which is really exciting as we know from our research that most consumers don’t think they will like it before they’ve tried it, but once sampled, around 80% go on to buy. We have also seen from past sampling activities that people have a barrier to the concept of ice tea until they actually taste it, which is why a campaign like this is really important,” shared Jon Evans, Head of Seed Brands at Britvic, the bottling partner of Pepsi Lipton International in the UK & Ireland region.

The brand’s share on the market is growing rapidly. “Lipton Ice Tea continues to go from strength to strength and has been a key driver within the cold hot drinks sub-category for the past two years, which is the fastest growing soft drinks sub-category, experiencing 26% value growth and worth £23.7m,” added Evans. Still, targeted promotion is always a good thing. Last year, the brand launched a similar campaign, encouraging consumers to become brand ambassadors and give away samples for a chance to £250 worth Red Letter Days vouchers.