The infographic above shows the story of TWG tea, a famous Singaporean based tea brand and the smart tactics they used to give the brand overall feel of luxury and grandness.
About TWG
TWG Tea is a Singaporean tea company established in 2007 by Manoj M Murjani and Taha Bou Qdib. It has over 77 stores in 23 countries globally and offers over 100 types of tea from both Asian and European traditions in its stores. It is the corporate tea brand for the passenger of Business Class, First Class in the Lounges of Singapore Airlines and All Nippon Airways.
TWG not just offers tea, it takes it to the next level by offering a unique luxurious tea drinking experience through their high-class tea salons that offer more than just a tea pot! Old vintage patter of interior design, Italian marble floors, wood made tea counters, brass weighing scales everything gives a sense of luxury and grandness. Drinking tea becomes an experience of slowing down, calming yourself and indulging yourself in luxury while freeing you from all your stresses. All of the above would be pretty useless if it is not backed up by a great product. The tea itself is one of the finest qualities with a huge selection to choose from which makes the whole experience worthwhile.
Smart Branding or Delusion?
As the infographic above explains, the whole branding is a bit of a ‘delusion’ (if you allow me to call it). Having said that, it would be naïve to sweep the success of TWG by simply saying they are creating delusion on their customers by giving a classic feel to their brand and charging higher price. I believe it needs to be looked a lot deeper than that:
- Irrespective of whether you agree or not with the branding tactic, you have to give credit to the innovative aspect of it as in how they created a completely new niche and segment in the market out of nothing from thin air. Doing something as bold as this and without any precedence requires a great deal of courage.
- The above point also needs to be looked in the context that around same time other brands are competing hard over price (especially after GFC), TWG pretty much went out of the way charging higher price by creating their own niche.
- A new niche does not get created overnight, you need a very powerful strategy. Think about it like this, you are creating a demand for something that currently doesn’t exist. You need to make your potential customers feel they need this new product you are selling. You need them to agree that they need to pay high price for this product. You need to convince them that they need to give up part of their time to consume tea longer where they can just quickly do it for much cheaper and quicker at a local cafe. All these are great challenges that are not easy to overcome when you start out.
- Finally, the most important part that eventually decides the fate is the quality of the actual product. Even if getting everything else with the branding right if you are serving the same product that can be bought cheaper elsewhere, you might not last long. The tea itself is of great quality that makes the whole experience worthwhile and makes you want to spend more.
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