Financial Times

Dilmah: Making tea fashionable again
By Iromi Perera
Different countries have different strategies in marketing and advertising tea and this seems to be one of the secrets of the success of Dilmah tea.
Dilmah, a product of the successful family tea company of Merrill J. Fernando, is presently available in 92 countries and is the market leader in tea in New Zealand. The brand was first launched in Australia in 1988 is currently number two in the Australian market.

Dilmah tea is one of the favourite brands in Poland, the 10th highest consumer of tea in the world. Dilmah tea was introduced to the Polish market 10 years ago and today is regarded as the tea with the highest quality and unique taste in Poland. Poland was one of the first countries that Dilmah was marketed.

"The European market is generally driven by global brands and it was very difficult to get on shop shelves but we have managed. The most important thing was to create an image different from other well known brands," said Tomasz Witomski, distributor of Dilmah tea in Poland, speaking exclusively to The Sunday Times FT.

Witomski was here in Sri Lanka to attend the Dilmah Global Distributors Conference where distributors from over 50 countries gathered for a three-day conference and presentations and discussions were held on a variety of tea-related issues.

The strategy to market and advertise Dilmah tea in Poland is quite different to the norms of advertising. According to Witomski, they worked on persuading the consumers that they have a chance to taste something different and real. They made conscious decisions without using normal media and advertising as in a place where there are so many companies and products; one could easily be unheard among all advertisements.

People go to shops and select products that they had seen on the television but hardly any advertisement gives any idea about the quality of the product. Therefore, using the media in completely different ways, Dilmah tea was made familiar to consumers by way of a breakfast show on television. For several minutes expert guests explained and spoke of various issues about tea such as culture and history. These expert guests were ambassadors and professors. This way, year after year, Dilmah became considered as the expert in tea in the market. This was a good start against competing with huge companies. According to Witomski, big companies talk about their market shares and how much they spend on advertising but with Dilmah, they spoke about the quality of the tea and offered a different perspective to the consumers.

'Fine Tea Lovers Club' was a new way of educating people about tea. This club had meetings in large cities all over Poland and currently has over 1000 active members. The club's main activity was promoting the knowledge of tea. This created the chance to communicate with journalists, with many articles appearing frequently in a variety of magazines on different tea related topics.

Targeting the younger generation and promoting tea was yet another strategy. Witomski believes that multinational companies had made tea "boring" and that Dilmah worked hard to make tea fashionable again as the young generation was not interested in anything that was boring. They had met with teachers' organizations and explained and presented the story about tea and its history and also how tea can be presented to the younger generation.

One successful venture had been a tea boutique which was opened three years ago. A music school is situated near this boutique and young musicians were drawn to the whole concept of the tea boutique. So much so that they kept coming in order to learn more about tea and the difference in flavours. They would ask questions and seek literature on tea and websites.

More than 80 per cent of Polish tea drinkers prefer black tea, while flavoured tea remains popular. Green tea is currently the fastest growing segment, mainly because people believe it is much healthier, said Witomski. 30,000 tons of Dilmah tea is imported into Poland every year.

The Dilmah marketing and advertising strategy has clearly worked well in Poland and Witomski believes that those who can't afford to drink Dilmah tea everyday will serve Dilmah tea on special occasions, proving that Dilmah is indeed something different and special for the consumer.

With more than 50 countries represented at the Dilmah Global Distributor Conference, the MJF Group organized a special presentation and a three day tour for the delegates in order to send out a positive message that Sri Lanka was back to normal after the tsunami. According to Malik Fernando, Director, MJF Group, the tour will take the delegates all over the country, from the hill country to the cultural triangle, and is aimed at showing the delegates that Sri Lanka is a diverse and multi destination country.

Promoting tea through art
Dilmah launched an art and photography exhibition named 'Tea in the first sense', featuring different scenes from tea plantations in Sri Lanka. The paintings are by Sri Lankan artist Edwin Batawala and the photographs are by Zdenek and Michal Thoma, a Czech father and son team.

The exhibition will tour the world and is part of a project to educate consumers on the benefits of quality Ceylon tea and also to highlight the heritage of Ceylon tea. The exhibition was held during March 11-13 at the Trans Asia Hotel.

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