Sri Lankan cricketers add flavour to Ceylon Tea at Harrods UK

Wednesday, 18 June 2014 00:04 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

A special Ceylon Tea promotion campaign has been launched in the UK in June 2014 by the Sri Lanka Tea Board as the overseas sponsor of Sri Lanka Cricket jointly with the Sri Lanka High Commission. This special promotion has been planned to coincide with the Sri Lanka Cricket tour of UK. The Sri Lanka Tea Board is partnering with Harrods at Knightsbridge in London and has arranged a special promotion of Ceylon Tea for two weeks, including tea sampling sessions of pure Ceylon Tea, which will provide every visitor who takes part at the session an experience of Ceylon Tea in its purest form.

The daily tea tasting program commenced on 9 June and will continue for two weeks. This was a unique opportunity for premium Ceylon Tea Brands with ‘Lion Logo’ to be used at the tea sampling sessions and receive exposure to the target audience of Harrods which is considered an up market client group. Major tea importers, distributors and other relevant stake holders were also invited. Ceylon Tea Brands that participated in this project along with Sri Lanka Tea Board are Dilmah, Mlesna, Vintage, Basilur and Mabroc. As Ceylon Tea is the overseas sponsor of Sri Lanka Cricket, key Sri Lankan cricketers, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardena, Angelo Mathews and Lahiru Thirimanne who are on tour in England attended this special promotional event at Harrods and helped promote ‘Ceylon Tea’ as a national brand. The national cricket heroes added colour to the special promotion at Harrods by, tasting ‘Ceylon Tea’, and mingling with the target tea customers at Harrods. Sri Lanka High Commissioner Dr Chris Nonis also graced the occasion. Mike Bunston OBE, the Honorary Tea Ambassador for Ceylon Tea in the United Kingdom and Sonali Wijeratne, Minister (Commercial) were also present. Micheal de Zoysa, Manager of the Sri Lanka Cricket Team, who is also an expert on ‘Ceylon Tea,’ joined the team members at the event. In addition, dedicated display in food halls of Harrods with Ceylon Tea Brands, advertising across till points in food halls, advertisement on Egyptian escalator plasma screen, editorial in the e-newsletter to top Harrods rewards customers were also scheduled parallel to the tasting sessions. Sri Lanka Tea Board Chairperson Janaki Kuruppu said that UK has been identified as one of the target markets for the global promotion campaign of Ceylon Tea and Sri Lanka Tea Board has now taken the initiative to promote Ceylon Tea in the UK market, which is the second largest consumer of tea in the world. Given the interest shown by the market, Sri Lanka Tea Board has also planned out a series of promotional activities that also includes a campaign with the Guild of Fine Food, London over a period of six months.