Brooke Bond Red Label is one of the leading brand in the Indian Tea Market that propagates ‘Swaad Apnepan ka’ or taste of togetherness by breaking barriers. The brand operates at monthly Share of Voice of 35% but salience across all 12 months alone was not resulting in growth. Key was to break clutter by bringing alive the brand promise of ‘breaking barrier’ and engaging with the audience resulting in growth by 100 BPS. Brooke Bond Red Label which strives to bring people together, making the world a more welcoming place forced Indians to break barriers with arch rival Pakistan over a cup of tea!

Brooke Bond Red Label, a leading Indian Tea brand propagates “taste of togetherness” by breaking barriers. Salience alone was not helping, key was to break clutter by bringing alive brand promise of ‘breaking barrier’ and engaging with audiences resulting in growth.

Touted as Super bowl of Asia with 100 million+ sports fanatics on both sides of border hooked onto TV screens India-Pakistan rivalry is arguably bigger than Barcelona-Real Madrid in Soccer, Australia-New Zealand in rugby and Ali-Frazier in boxing. Partition of British India into India and Pakistan in 1947 and subsequent Kashmir conflict, three major wars laid the foundations for emergence of an intense sporting rivalry between India-Pakistan who had otherwise shared a common cricketing heritage. While India gained independence, but a barrier remained unbroken; this was the idea. BBRL decided to help arch rivals India Pakistan find common ground but this time over different “Cup”– a cup of tea!

1996 Cricket World Cup spat edged even to this day in every India-Pak fanatic’s memory where Pakistan opener Aamir Sohail hammered Indian fast bowler Venkatesh Prasad for four and brashly signalled bowler to fetch the ball. Indian paceman just turned his back and prepared to bowl next ball. He bowled leg-cutter, Sohail went for big heave but missed line & ball crashed into off stump. Now Prasad promptly showed him way to pavilion.

22 years later 2018 Asia Cup where both the nations were playing after 15 months, the dominant sentiment was of intense rivalry. Brooke Bond went against the grain of the prevalent sentiment with its own take of helping people find common ground. We brought together Venkatesh Prasad & Aamir Sohail over tasty cup of Brooke Bond Red Label and chat about their epic exchange of 1996 match, share a laugh and relive memories live during India-Pakistan match.

The campaign was executed in three parts

Teaser promo leading to master content piece released on Star Sports channel, social media handles a week before India and Pakistan match was going to be broadcasted live.

The hero content played live during India & Pakistan match- A “5 minute” conversation between two rivals over a cup of Brooke Bond Red Label tea where they laughed and relived the whole moment and truly broke barriers. This followed by warm recreation of the moment with little twist i.e. this time with Venkatesh Prasad batting while Aamir Sohail bowling!

But for arch rivals to really talk about warmth while teams were ripping it apart on field needed some nudge. Battery of influencers- Cricketers, Commentators, Diplomats & even players from 1996 match introduced on print, broadcast, digital medium to spread positive cheer, togetherness & love reaching 60 million over 3 weeks & eventually Breaking Barriers

Campaign touched the chords of 60 million Indians. 14X surge in brand mentions, 2X improvement in positive sentiments. Brand Equity Score increased by 330 BPS- 57.5 to 60.8%. Penetration Increased by 110 BPS, became India’s no.1 Tea Brand, 113 BPS ahead of No. 2 brand (Source: BTS, Unilever). What makes us Happier is that it gave people on both sides of the border a reason to smile and a moment to cherish, thus an attempt to #breaking barrier over a cup of tea.

“The campaign was a huge win for the brand, both the countries and the spirit of cricket. Perfect occasion for Venkatesh Prasad and Aamir Sohail to come together over a tasty cup of Brooke Bond Red Label and chat about their epic 1996 exchange. Kudos to the team to conceptualize and execute this campaign” – Shiva Krishnamurthy - Vice President, Tea & Foods, Unilever