The globe threw the title of a buffoon on him, turning him into an embodiment of evil, but he is soaring higher than ever, all set to reign through the support of his dubious followers. Sheldon Cooper being a slave to the cultural conventions believes in offering a hot beverage to people who are upset; absorbing some inspiration from him, TE-A-ME is giving some tea for purification to this persona desiring to get rid of this lingering upset of the society calling the campaign #TeaForTrump.
TE-A-ME's gift to Trump
Witty in nature, #TeaForTrump campaign overloaded with some tongue-in-cheek humour flourished by leveraging on a global political identity. The Indian tea company TA-E-ME delivered a huge consignment filled with 6000 bags of famous Assam green tea to the presumptive Republic presidential candidate, Donald Trump, along with that had a message for him.
Sumit Shah, Managing Director of TE-A-ME Teas shared, “For our first intervention, we choose to showcase one flavour, our Purify Natural Green Tea, and decided that the person who possibly needs it the most at this time is Mr. Trump. From this intervention, wish to spread the word about the benefits of Green tea.”
Not-so-subtly hinting towards their product benefits, they sent him four years worth tea bags giving him an opportunity to cleanse himself. Establishing his empire of wrath, homophobia, racism, Islamophobia and more, Trump has worried the entire world from Mexicans, Muslims, Jews, Blacks, Immigrants and even the queer community.
As the dialogues fills in the screen, "Dear Mr Trump, namaste from India, we are sending you lots and lots of natural green tea. It fights against harmful free radicals. It helps purify mind and body and regain a healthy balance. It has also proven to make people smarter. Please Mr Trump, drink the tea. For your sake, for America’s sake, for the world’s sake."
Through their campaign, the brand boasted itself obliquely by simultaneously tagging along Donald Trump and making an international connect. The video flow builds curiosity and captures the reaction of the people around Donald Trump, who are baffled and so inquisitive about the entire activity carried out by TE-A-ME team.
The two minute film has a very vibrant, jazzy music in the background, giving the entire product a light-hearted stroke, keeping the soul of the campaign to be pleasant despite the severity of the actual issue.
When we questioned the brand about any other personality apart from Trump who needs to drink TE-A-Me, Shah tossing the question asked Social Samosa to choose someone for them and replied, “We have 20 different flavors, each flavor suited for a different mood and benefit. Choose a flavor and recommend a person. We are actively considering all suggestions for the next TE-A-ME intervention.”
Shah shared with Social Samosa the possibility of having various phases to this campaign, “The world has seen the first TE-A-ME Intervention. We will continue to send teas (possibly different varieties) to eminent personalities in the coming months. As of now, we are actively considering a crowd sourcing model, which will allow digitally-connected audience to co-create the next intervention with us.”
Building such a bold campaign, Shah shared the glitches faced during the making, “It was a multi-city, international effort to deliver the tea. Given Mr. Trump's profile, security was intense. Also, while a number of possible partners were delighted by the idea of the delivery, nobody actually wanted to take on the risk of involvement.”
The idea for the campaign struck the brand a couple of months back through a consumer group exercise; we realized that a large part of the world was very unaware about the different varieties and benefits of teas. “Given that we firmly believe in the power of teas - we decided to take upon ourselves, the responsibility of making the world aware. Green tea was the first product we wanted to showcase - in the coming months, we will showcase other tea varieties to build awareness,” Shah expressed.
Social reaction for #TeaForTrump
One of a kind, this non-fictional campaign is a rare combination of politics and hilarity, well suitable to the current world scenarios. With an appreciable imagination, TE-A-ME manages to strike a chord with the responsive, elite class of the society who is aware of international politics and Trump tyranny.
On social media, the Indian brand got widely noticed and kept making the rounds on social media through their campaign which directly does not affect the Indians but intrigues them for sure.
The video shared on July 14 received a whooping 2.7M views, over 42k reactions, engagement rate of 130K, total reach of 230 million, and was shared 40,175 making it a large triumph on the digital platform through their digits.
Talking about the social media plan, Shah shared, “The social media plan revolved around getting a high level of engagement around our content (the video with a message for Mr Trump) and providing an interface for the consumers to leave a message for Mr Trump using #TeaForTrump. We essentially want the world to ask Mr Trump to consume the teas, at the same time exploring the benefits and varieties of TE-A-ME's teas.”
“For me, the bingo moment about this whole project is that we've actually connected at a real level with real people. We created a campaign that goes beyond advertising and touches the emotions of a global audience.”
#TeaForTrump is one of the boldest campaigns of 2016. The campaign has managed to place the Kolkata based brand on national and international timelines.
Through this campaign, the brand also established their target audiences, which happen to be the social active, educated Indians who can decipher the film and gag over it. Blended richly, the campaign embraces everything from exclusivity, wit, America-India relationship, some flavored tea and global politics. How often do we see this mix?
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