Snapple White Tea “High Tea” Tour

Project:
Snapple Beverage Corporation, makers of the wildly popular line of ready-to-drink teas, needed to launch their newest creation: Snapple White Teas, ‘The Lightest Tasting Teas on Earth’. What better way than to fly consumers in personal helium balloons up to 1,200 feet above 9 U.S. cities?

Client:
Ruder Finn for Snapple

• Venue research, acquisition and relations in 9 U.S. markets from coast to coast
• Tour logistics, trucking and routing
• Sampling management in each market
• Vendor sourcing, contracting and management in each market
• Scenic and event design
• Complete on-site management and staffing in each market

• Three 22-foot Snapple-branded helium balloons featuring floating tealeaves and each of the three Snapple White Tea flavors
• 10,000 full-size bottles of the new product to sample in NYC’s Bryant Park for the kickoff “launch” event, 3,000 bottles in other markets.
• TeaMeister tent in each market, soothingly designed with actual white tea plants, Zen-inspired fountains and experts acting as tea sommeliers for the public.
• Venues that combine high visibility, consumer foot traffic and enough space for safe flying
• Brave event staff to take the inaugural test flight in each market

More than 32,000 consumers attended the tour events in nine markets, with over 1,350 of them taking a ride. Over 21,000 samples of Snapple White Tea distributed to consumers. Total media impressions estimated at over 33 million, with stories and spots appearing in The New York Times, Fox and Friends, NY Metro (with a front page color photo), BrandWeek and major daily papers and network affiliates nationwide.

Snapple’s research has tracked sales spikes in tour cities and overall product sales are now exceeding expectation, making the event one of the largest and most successful launches in the company’s history.