Marketing Plan of Lipton Ice Tea free essay sample

An aromatic, uplifting beverage savored for centuries around the world from India and Ireland to the U. S. A. , tea was once an expensive drink, enjoyed exclusively by the wealthy. And with early packaging and transportation issues, it was also variable in quality and taste. In 1880, 40-year-old, Glasgow-born entrepreneur and innovator Sir Thomas Lipton envisioned an opportunity to make tea universally accessible with guaranteed quality at acceptable prices. He began by purchasing tea estates in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, and arranged packaging and shipping at low costs to sell his teas directly from the tea garden to the tea pot. In 1893, he established the Thomas J Lipton Co. , a tea packing company with its headquarters and factory in Hoboken, New Jersey. Lipton Distribution Around World : Lipton teas were an immediate success in the United States and the United Kingdom. In recognition of his exceptional contribution, Thomas Lipton was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1898, and became Sir Thomas Lipton at the age of forty-eight. This positive press has definitely catapulted the demand for tea (Mintel 2005). Both the need for convenience and positive press on tea have spurred an increase in sales of tea products, specifically ready-to-drink (RTD) teas sold in single-serve containers (Mintel 2005). Recognizing this trend, various companies in the tea industry have come up with innovative products to take advantage of the booming market for ready-to-drink teas. Lipton tea, one of the global leaders in refreshment brands, launched new products to meet the growing the need for ready-to drink teas and introduced innovative product line to capture the healthconscious market. 3 For over a century, Lipton has been dominating the world tea market with the company’s tea-based drinks including leaf tea, infusions and ready-to-drink tea. Its success has been attributed to the firm’s â€Å"strong focus on innovation and the expertise of its tea specialistsprofessionals in tea-growing, tasting, buying, blending and RD teams† (Wikipedia 2007). One of the main driving forces for Lipton’s success is the company’s source of tea. Lipton teas are sourced from various plantations in well-know tea-producing countries such as India, Indonesia, Kenya and Sri Lanka. It maintains specialized tasting rooms in seven regional located across the globe. Presently, Lipton has about 30 different tea blends (Wikipedia 2007). As Lipton is a part of the Unilever global consortium, the company ensures that its tea producing farms do not only yield high-quality product but also protect and improve the natural environment and livelihood of workers and local communities. Lipton’s plantations in East Africa have been working with third party estates to ensure compliance with Unilever’s sustainable agriculture guidelines and the Ethical Tea Partnership criteria (Wikipedia 2007). As part of Lipton tea’s drive to capture the booming market for ready-to-drink teas, the Anglo-Dutch Unilever Company entered into a joint agreement with American PepsiCo in 2003.