Delivering Great Campaigns: What It Takes…

We’ve been making films for over 30 years, and it means we’ve got a great deal to offer as a production partner.

We love working with clients old and new to create award-winning content that helps ignite campaigns – and takes them to the next level!

Creativity, experience, and expertise are our hallmarks, and they’re integral to how we approach every project we undertake.

Of course, you’d expect us to talk the talk – but allow us to show you how we walk the walk, and explore one of our most recent successful collaborations in recent times…

Setting the Scene

Ahmad Tea is one of the UK’s leading tea companies, founded on a distinct set of values, a clear sense of identity, and a positive vision.

As experts in tea, they understood the perceptions that surround tea and the demographics that consume it – and they wanted a campaign idea that would appeal to a new generation of tea drinker.

Much of tea advertising focuses on the idea of softness; refreshment, experiencing ‘the moment’ etc. They’re ideas that resonate with middle-aged people but aren’t so effective when connecting with younger generations – and Ahmad Tea wanted to disrupt this.

The Challenge

They wanted a campaign that would help them reach a younger demographic: young consumers who seek out something different and are best engaged through genuine, authentic storytelling.

It needed to help increase awareness of the brand among younger consumers across all key markets (with a focus on the Middle & Far East, Russia, and the USA) and set Ahmad Tea apart from others on the supermarket shelves, whilst retaining a sense of Britishness thanks to the company’s pride in its UK roots.

The Solution

We’re firm believers in the potential for great ideas to come from any – and everywhere – and our solution came, in a sense, from within Ahmad Tea.

To quote company founder and owner, Rahim Afshar, blending great tea takes ‘true artistry’ – and we took immediate inspiration.

Before long, we settled on a theme through asking a simple question:

What does it take to be an artist?

And low and behold, a new global brand theme was born.

The Plan

The campaign would be driven by finding answers to this question through the stories of different practicing artists, but with a modern twist – just like the brand.

We’d meet three young artists and find out how each strives for artistic perfection. As artists themselves, Ahmad Tea understands the strive for artistic expression and the search for perfection, so running parallel with these stories would be the story of an Ahmad Tea ‘artist’ (William Manning, a Senior Tea Taster).

These four short stories would form the core of the campaign – a series of short hero films in which each artist discusses ‘what it takes’: the hard work; the sacrifice; the attention to detail, the successes and failures…

We’d also create an overarching piece which drew from each story to create compelling content to serve as attractor films in 90-sec, 30-sec, and bitesize formats, purpose-made for social media distribution.

In total, this would create a campaign that would effectively disrupt traditional tea advertising and help Ahmad Tea connect with a younger audience.

Making It Happen

First up, we needed to find artists who fitted with the vision and would complement our featured blender from Ahmad Tea.

We focused on emerging artists who offered insight into different disciplines as well as a mixture of backgrounds. Over 2 months, we poured through recommendations, online research, exploring social media explorations, and in-depth conversations, before finding our final three artists: Alice Kinsella (gymnast), Jaleesa Gemerts (drummer), and Kyle Barnes (portrait artist).

We then spent 2 days filming with each artist and capturing high-quality photography, allowing us to capture in-depth content and B-roll that would give us extensive insight into their personalities, their experiences, and their artistic endeavours.

The interviews were conducted using a 1-2-1 approach with an eye-direct to give an emotional, authentic feel that would help our featured artists connect with the audience.

This was coupled with a filming style using anamorphic lenses to create a cinematic quality that nonetheless felt grounded, granular, urban – a thematic reflection of the everyday nature of tea-drinking, aligned with the aspiration of drinking something of quality, made with care and love.

Alongside this content, written articles and GIFs were developed to enhance the social media campaign.

Once all these pieces were in place, we were ready for lift-off…

Measuring Success

The campaign was set out with a 3-phase approach:

• Tease (Build Anticipation)
• Experience (Hero Films)
• Amplify (Drive Engagement through Storytelling Content)

Rollout and amplification took two approaches for local and global rollouts.

Localized activations involved bespoke plans within specific markets. For example, in Russia, a combination of TV, radio, events, social media online advertising, influencers and YouTube advertising was utilised which resulted in 250 million impressions, and similar strategies were used within other markets.

The global digital campaign focused on Ahmad Tea’s owned channels, with key goals for views and interactions across the channels laid out to measure its success.

We blew every target out the water – and then some!

• Projected reach = 51m (70% increase on a target of 30m)
• Total interactions = 85k (225% increase on a target of 26k)
• Video views = 6m (9% increase on a target of just under 5.5m)
• YouTube views = 885k (203% increase on a target of 435k)

Leaving a Legacy

Two of our featured artists, Kyle Warner & Alice Kinsella (who went on to win Bronze at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics), have since become ambassadors for the brand, featuring in online articles, bespoke global Ahmad Tea events, and writing blogs sponsored by the brand.

And as if that wasn’t enough, What It Takes would go on to win Gold and Silver awards and the New York Festivals Film & TV Awards & at London EVCOM Film Awards.

As a result, you won’t be surprised when we say we’re incredibly proud to have produced the What It Takes series for Ahmad Tea.

The campaign has been a great success in helping bring the brand to a new audience, and it’s helped us since build an exciting new partnership with Ahmad Tea which we hope will continue for a long time to come.

So: what are you waiting for?

If you want to create exciting, dynamic film content for a campaign that will help bring your brand to new audiences, get in touch – because we’re here to help!