This article is part of our Hot Beverages Digital Feature.

Hot beverages’ biggest advertisers have turned the heat up, increasing traditional ad spend 18.1% over the past year to £32.2m [Ebiquity 52 w/e 31 May 2015].

Nescafé remains the category’s biggest spender, sinking £11.4m into its ads, with the majority spent on TV. The bulk of it was used to support Gold Blend’s £7m Golden Opportunities Await campaign featuring a mother playing dinosaurs with her son. The advert was well timed to tap into dino-fever sweeping the nation ahead of Jurassic World’s release.

Meanwhile, Taylors of Harrogate, Douwe Egberts and Lavazza were among those to see the biggest increases in spend, alongside Tetley, which was supported with an extra 55.6% spend.

Tetley threw nearly £5m into advertising, which included TV movie sponsorship and £1m on an outdoor campaign across 4,000 strategic sites, with sampling at railway stations, for its Super Green Tea range. “Advertising remains a key part of our spend and is driving increased awareness of the brand,” says Andrew Pearl, director of customer and shopper marketing for the brand. “In-store and shopper marketing has been a big part of that and will continue.”

The sector’s biggest tea brand PG Tips, on the other hand, marginally reduced its advertising spend to £3.8m. However, it plans to court younger consumers this year with a new £5m cross-media campaign encouraging customers to Keep It Tea.

MediaTotal CinemaOutdoorPressRadioTV
Brands spend (£m) y-o-y% % % % % %
Nescafé 11.4 17.2 1.5 10.2 2.7 - 85.6
Tetley 4.9 55.6 - 8.0 5.0 - 87.0
PG Tips 3.8 -1.6 - 12.5 9.4 - 78.0
Douwe Egberts 3.0 54.1 - - 19.2 - 80.8
Twinings 2.5 2.9 - - 1.8 22.4 75.8
Nespresso 2.2 -7.8 - - 19.4 - 80.6
Taylors of Harrogate 1.9 111.3 - 17.5 22.3 - 60.2
Lavazza 1.7 64.5 - 20.0 3.0 - 77.0
Clipper 0.7 26.7 - 13.0 2.8 - 84.2
Kenco 0.2 -84.8 94.6 - 5.4 - -
TOTAL (Top 10) 32.2 18.1 1.2 8.6 7.6 1.7 80.8
Ebiquity 52 w/e 31 May 2015

Here’s our pick of the most significant hot beverages ads on TV from the past year:

PG Tips: Keep It Tea

Oo-er! PG Tips’ cheeky mascot Monkey just got even cheekier, sharing his vajazzle (albeit pixelated) with the whole of Great Britain. The skit is part of PG Tips’ Keep It Tea campaign, which sees Monkey in a variety of situations – not all of them PG – including watching trash TV and trying to put together a tent.

As sales of everyday black tea fall, PG Tips is trying to coax back younger consumers by encouraging them to keep it simple with a nice cup of tea. “The world has become increasingly superficial and fake, but tea is the thing that grounds us,” says Kate Hearn, senior brand manager at Unilever.

Nespresso: How far would you go for Nespresso?

The luxurious landscapes, the elegant building and Hollywood heartthrob George Clooney – this could only be a Nespresso advert. The advert oozes sophistication in keeping with the brand, with the machine proudly displayed at the swanky event.

However, coffee pods machines aren’t only for the young, affluent shopper any more, with two thirds of pods’ growth in grocery coming from less affluent shoppers and those in the Midlands and North [Kantar]. Will Nespresso have to find a more accessible celebrity for its campaigns in the future?

Douwe Egberts: limited-edition jars

Splashing out on advertising paid off for Douwe Egberts – sales are up 24.4% on volumes up 33.2% [IRI 52 w/e 20 June 2015]. The brand aimed to differentiate itself from other premium coffees with its latest advert claiming ‘it’s no ordinary jar, it’s no ordinary coffee’.

Perhaps unusually for a coffee advert, it focused equally on the jar and the coffee to push the limited-edition packaging created by fashion designer Orla Kiely.

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