A brand transformation with purpose

Tea drinkers are stubborn

Clipper has always stood for tea that’s natural, fair and delicious. But mainstream tea habits are hard to shift. The big brands dominate supermarket shelves, ethical niche brands are stuck in health shops, and most shoppers buy their usual tea without a second thought.

Clipper had a great story to tell – but had never found the perfect way to express its brand and disrupt the category.

Getting to the core of Clipper

We started inside the business, running stakeholder interviews and a Collisions™ workshop to really get under the skin of the brand. The aim was simple: strip back, simplify, and define a positioning strong enough to act as a launchpad for everything to come.

‘Natural’ and ‘Fair’ were real strengths – but also generic to the wider ethical tea market. Clipper had more to offer: a deeper purpose, and a differentiating attitude. Environmental responsibility was baked in, but so was a relentless drive for exceptional taste.

The truth? Consumers care about eco-responsibility, but what really resonates are brands that reflect their values and bring them joy.

From this clarity came a new Brand Idea: Joy with Responsibility.

We brought it to life through a manifesto, brand pillars, and an internal brand film – giving the team the tools to take it confidently across the business.

Taking on the big players

Leading with the brand’s promise of joy, backed by the reassurance of responsibility, we then stepped out of the rational and into the emotional, helping people experience the brand’s purpose in a way that entertained and cut through.

‘A tea so good, it’s the one the world would choose too.’

This was the sentiment behind our feel-good comms, using Clipper’s signature illustrations, and the charm and personality from the natural world. Suddenly, we didn’t look like, or act like, other tea brands. And we created a message, and brand voice, that led people to reconsider their tea choice: ‘There’s tea, then there’s GOOD tea’.

To further heighten emotion, we created a bespoke and branded drum and bass music track. Which was a banger. We unleashed the joy everywhere, right across Europe, on TV, social, digital, in-store, Spotify, and beyond.

Before launch, we tested the work with System1, scoring a category-leading 5.9 – a confident thumbs-up.

So good it sold out

Within weeks, supermarkets were selling out of Clipper.

The first month was the most successful campaign in Clipper’s history, with sales in Tesco up 45% year on year. Across the UK, first-year sales grew 27% in value.

Today, the Joy with Responsibility positioning and the “There’s Tea, Then There’s GOOD Tea” campaign form the backbone of the Clipper brand across Europe.