The Head of Comms at RBS approached Unity with a seemingly simple, but in reality fiendishly difficult, brief: “can you help us to make Direct Line contemporary, culturally relevant and engaging for Middle England?”

StrategyFirst of all Unity unearthed a central truth about the brand, namely that “It’s good in a crisis“. From this, came an idea that focused on the very British response to an everyday crisis, namely putting the kettle on.

The idea of coping well with a crisis had particular resonance against the backdrop of the recession. The old British blitz spirit was reawakened as people dug in their heels as the credit crunch took hold. Middle England especially takes genuine pride in coping during times of need, both through stiff-upper-lip pragmatism, but also through providing tea and sympathy to one’s fellow man. One could say, therefore, that a typical British response to a crisis is to put the kettle on!

To keep the campaign lighthearted, it focused on everyday crises as opposed to major catastrophes. These everyday disasters – solvable with a simple, curative cuppa – were dubbed as tea-mergencies. Working with City University London’s psychology department, an experiment was devised that quantified the calming effects of tea. The results backed up the hypothesis, finding that a cup of tea really does calm Brits down after a crisis, in some cases making them even less anxious than before the “teamergency” began.

This finding was sent to the media with tea-sers accompanying boxes of bespoke “teamergency” tea, produced by master-blender Alex Probyn that arrived just before deadlines (journalists’ own recurring teamergency).

A Twitter campaign was launched with a number of novel features:

• a bespoke “tea-bot“, automatically re-tweeting any tweet containing the word “tea“.
• technology that scoured tweets for signs of “tea-mergencies“, these folks then received our tea (a true delight for people and a Twitter “first“). Journalists also “happened” to be selected.
• generally encouraging the use of “teamergency”.

Central to the campaign was a microsite, which hosted the research, as well as “Tea-V moments” (situations in British soaps when characters put the kettle on to help solve a problem), and a map, which aggregated Twitter tea mentions to demonstrate the virility of the nation’s obsession with our favourite hot beverage.

Tea boxes were also wrapped in a poster with the retro slogan “Tea is for Trouble” (channelling the “keep calm and carry on” ethos), ensuring the campaign lived on – on the walls of homes up and down the country and grounding it culturally.

ResultsProviding a rationale for us Brits’ tendency to use the kettle to cope, was like catnip for the media. Extensive coverage was generated including a page-lead in The Telegraph and stories in the Daily Mail, Daily Express, The Sun and a double-page spread in the Mirror – perfect, given the focus on Middle England.

Broadcast included extensive radio, a news story on GMTV, interviews on ITN, as well as coverage on Sky News, Channel 5 News, Radio 4 Today and Five Live. All in all the coverage generated UK opportunities to see (OTS) of 56.6 million, supplemented by coverage in four further continents including America (CNBC) and Australia (The Australian).

Twitter generated a tweet-reach of over 2 million – with launch week alone seeing over a thousand tweets using teamergency, as well as extensive coverage on blogs. And journalists expressed their delight with their press tea-sers with some – including The Times – going so far as to send us pictures of themselves enjoying a nice cuppa under the teamergency poster.

The term teamergency has now fully infiltrated Twitter speak with tweeters continuing to use the word to describe stressful situations.

The coverage secured meant generated extensive interest from day one, which was built upon online, giving a platform to engage directly with consumers in a brand new way. This gave the brand cultural relevance (tick), and made it both contemporary and engaging (tick, tick).

This one example of tweeter’s engagement really brings it to life – they woke up, saw/heard the coverage, tweeted about it, were re-tweeted by our tea-bot, reacted to that, and then finally responded with their own teamergency:

Tweet 1 (from @writebuzz):
Thinking that it's time for tea! Wot with tea-drinking being such hot news n' all! Tea drinking being a prime time TV news story 2day …

(then @writebuzz got re-tweeted at by our tea robot, and responded by tweeting:)
... and not for the first time! ... or should that be thirst time? There's even a website and they're looking 4 tweets! #teamergency

(and then this – showing engagement/activation):
Taking a stress-relieving tea-break – Tea for five and five for tea. Who's turn is it? Ha! ... sounds like it's me! How's that #teamergency?

Timing
The campaign took place in September 2009.