What can we learn from Taylors of Harrogate

Author: John Giles Divisional Director, Promar International & President of CIM's FDA Group

John Giles, Divisional Director, Promar International & President of CIM's FDA Group reports.

The business has been going a long time – founded originally in the 1880s as confectionery business, by a Swiss immigrant family in Bradford. Th Yorkshire Tea brand was not established until the 1970s, when the likes of PG Tips and Tetleys ruled the tea world. The success of Yorkshire Tea has been in the face of a declining black tea market in the UK which has faced huge competition from the emergence of the coffee sector, bottled water, energy drinks and speciality teas too.

The real challenge at the time was to promote to consumers based outside of Yorkshire and learn how to behave an act like a national brand. The initial promotion and advertising helped develop the provenance of the brand with the slogan, “let's have a proper brew”. It has more recently benefitted from unexpected mentions in the US drama series, “Homelands” and from one of the members of boy band, One Direction (who tweeted he always drank YT to his 20 million followers). Social media has played an increasingly important part in the marketing strategy and tactics of Taylors. TV adverts have also had a slightly quirky feel to them with appearances from the Brownlee Brothers, Michael Parkinson and the Kaiser Chiefs all featuring.

The business has also ventured in to new areas, such as roast coffee and flavoured teas too under the Taylors of Harrogate brand. By his own admission, Dom told us that the first comms strategy for these products didn’t work at all well and re building the confidence in the business took time for a second attempt. This was aimed at communicating more effectively who Taylors really were and what their brand values were all about in an increasingly complex and diverse market place. The re brand featured Jimmy Doherty and coffee farmers and was seen as being more down to earth in its nature.

The foodservice sector and exports are seen as new areas to explore. Exports are often made typically to English speaking markets such as the US, Canada, Australia and India – but also to markets such as China too. Both roasted coffee and flavoured tea products have had a common re brand that started with the packaging and the marketing logo of “the home of extraordinary flavour”.

The objective has been to provide consumers with great tasting products but without an overly complicated marketing message – Taylors still want to keep their products “proper !”. They look to combine the best of both worlds – the traditional family values of a well established business, as well as the use of modern marketing techniques. Key decisions for the business are driven by a desire to ensure the long term sustainability of the company and less so by the need to generate “quick cash”. This, not least, might explain a more cautious approach to the development of the foodservice market as a good example.

This was a great evening and the transferable lessons for all food and drink companies were aplenty. A well attended event – with almost 70 members and guests of the FDA Group there – all went home happy (if the feedback forms are to be believed - and why wouldn’t you – but this was an event, when you didn’t need a form to tell you if people enjoyed it!) and they can’t have gone away without being impressed by the Taylors way of doing business and be better informed in some way.

A pity maybe when you left the building you had to dodge a heavy down pour on the way back to the tube, but as we have said in the past at the FDA Group – “you can’t beat being there”. Thanks to MINTEL for hosting this excellent event on our behalf.