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The winner of The Briefless Brief #2 is…

by Jo Rammell
8 min read

We've had some amazing entries for our second Briefless Brief, and they also deserve to be seen far and wide! So alongside announcing the winner, we've highlighted our other faves.

The winner is…

Kirsty-Elise Noonan - Senior Freelance Digital PR

The Idea: The Yorkshire Hot(tea)line

Coffee addiction is synonymous with our fast-paced world, where high stress is often matched with high caffeine consumption. Unfortunately, many people don’t realise that this increases stress rather than alleviating it. In fact, studies show that 50% of people who feel stressed turn to caffeine, in turn raising their cortisol levels and heightening feelings of stress.

Yorkshire Tea understands how difficult it can be to break this cycle, so to help they’ve created The Yorkshire Hot(tea)line, an over-the-phone service offering support to coffee lovers as they make the transition to a drink with half the caffeine content… Tea.

Accessible from your own phone, callers can receive an ‘emergency tea delivery’ via delivery partners, receive advice on managing stress without excessive caffeine, and if you’re lucky enough to be put on hold you’ll even get to listen to relaxing ASMR of a cuppa being made—think boiling kettles and tinkling spoons.

If you find yourself having a moment of weakness when passing by your favourite coffee shop, don’t worry. Yorkshire Tea have refurbished a number of iconic red telephone boxes (another symbol of British culture, just like drinking tea) and placed them outside the UK’s most popular coffee spots, giving you direct access to the hotline and a free cuppa.

So, next time you're near a coffee spot or about to boil the kettle, why not give the Yorkshire Hot(tea)line a ring?

The visual assets feature phones and telephone boxes, both in a Yorkshire Tea's red colour, set against the Yorkshire Tea countryside background as well as a new background depicting a coffee shop in the same style. These images will be shared on social media to promote the hotline and educate on the benefits of switching to tea.

Why did the Evoluted PR team choose this winner?

We felt that this idea perfectly aligned with the brief and taps into one of the biggest reasons users may want to switch from coffee to tea: to reduce caffeine. With plenty of hooks and real-world data, this campaign idea is a fun way to raise awareness of the nation's reliance on caffeine and the daily exposures to stressors in the workplace and at home. We thought the clever copy was great, and the designs also felt super on-brand for Yorkshire Tea, which we loved!

What were the other standout entries?

Although we loved Kirsty's, this was an even harder decision than the first one, and we were really torn. Here's some of our other favourites: 

Alice Venard / TrunkBBI

The Idea: Ditch the latte art... Embrace the Mas-tea-piece

Coffee lovers love to take photos of their latte art to post on social media. Unfortunately, our favourite mug of Yorkshire Tea doesn’t quite have the same Instagram-worthy appeal, until now…

Ditch the foam, embrace the Gogh-tea!

Every cup of tea deserves its own Monet moment. Yorkshire Tea lovers will no longer feel left out of posting latte art across social, as you can now snap and sip on your very own masterpiece (Mas-Tea-Piece).

At Yorkshire Tea, we believe that every feed deserves its own Da Vin-Tea picture. Come and join us at your local art gallery to taste art worthy of The Louvre.

You can choose from 10 different famous paintings to have printed onto your tea. So, forget the grind, and come and share a Yorkshire Tea masterpiece you can sip!

Paintings include:

1. Mona Lisa

2. The Last Supper

3. The Starry Night

4. The Scream

5. Guernica

6. The Kiss

7. Girl With A Pearl Earring

8. The Birth of Venus

9. Las Meninas

10. Creation of Adam

The PR campaign works because it appeals to coffee lovers who enjoy the aesthetic that coffee has and like showing off their latte art on social media. The campaign offers a fun and unique experience by pairing real-life art with a heritage brand such as Yorkshire Tea. The campaign encourages people to visit their local art galleries and to post their Yorkshire Tea art on their social media. Yorkshire Tea could partner with local art councils and museums to push the campaign and appeal to a wider demographic. To push this campaign further, Yorkshire Tea could partner with coffee-obsessed influencers to drive footfall and create buzz for Yorkshire Tea’s campaign.

Megan Cushnahan - PR Manager at Student Beans

The Idea: Free TEA-th whitening

With strong espressos and sugary flavoured lattes causing havoc to Britain's teeth, Yorkshire Tea have announced their new TEAth whitening service to coffee converts.

For those who pledge to replace their morning flat white with a delicious brew of Yorkshire Tea, the brand will offer free teeth whitening for as long as they remain loyal to the teabag.

By switching to a delicious cuppa, Yorkshire Tea predicts Brits will subject their teeth to fewer staining opportunities as well as reducing the options for sugary syrups, leaving their mouth looking (and smelling) fresher - a win win for all!

Sean Fitzsimons - Senior Creative  

The idea: A brew for our troubled waters

The homeland of the Yorkshire Tea brand has 25 beautiful rivers flowing through its counties that need protecting.

Polluted rivers are a local & nationwide concern. So, we’d encourage more people to buy a box of tea to protect local rivers — coffee drinkers, tea drinkers and everyone else within the 94% of the public who supports the drive for healthy rivers by 2030.

For every box of Yorkshire Tea bought in the 22 days leading up to #WorldRiversDay in September, they will donate the equivalent price of a brew to the @YorkDalesRT. Aiming to raise at least £516,386 — and they will make up the remaining amount regardless... but why £516,386?

In just one year, sewage was dumped into Yorkshire's waterways for 516,386 hours.

So this would be one step in supporting cleaner water locally, while sharing the national message for wanting healthier water across the UK.

Richard Blakey - Brand Lead at Flinn & Steel

The Idea: A pop-up/OOH activation for a hipster coffee shop that only serves... Yorkshire Tea

Imagine a cozy, modern coffee shop interior with sleek tiled walls and wooden floors. In the center, there’s a shiny coffee machine, but with a twist—it’s been custom-branded with the Yorkshire Tea colours and adapted to serve tea - sorry La Marzocco UK and Victoria Arduino! Will die hard coffee drinkers hate it? Probably. Does a branded Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire Tea coff-tea machine look banging? Yes, it does.

Joe Matthewson - IAM Leader at HSBC

The idea:  The Yorkshire Tea-hab

Nestled in the heart of Yorkshire, in a relaxing countryside retreat in Harrogate, is the Yorkshire ‘Teahab’ a rehabilitation centre for coffee lovers looking to ditch their espresso addiction.

Here, you won't find fancy mocha iced lattes or trendy blends, as all forms of coffee are locked away from guests. At the end of your stay, coffee will be a forgotten memory and a good old-fashioned 'proper brew' will be your new daily go-to.

And we couldn’t miss out on the fun ourselves…

We know we can’t win, but we had to join in the fun. Here’s Evoluted’s entries:

Evoluted PR team

The idea: Introducing ‘Sip by Sip: A DIY Tasting Journey From Coffee to Tea’

Research shows 2 in 5 coffee drinkers want to cut down their caffeine intake - and they’d prefer to reduce than switch to decaffeinated. The perfect target for a coffee to tea conversion!

It’s a big change, so Yorkshire Tea will help them take it slowly with their ‘Sip by Sip: A DIY Tasting Journey From Coffee to Tea' kits.

Yorkshire Tea is providing a tasting menu experience designed to convert even the most obsessed coffee connoisseurs. By the end, they’ll be shouting “Let’s have a PROPER brew”.

Coffee lovers will go on a journey, transitioning from the rich notes of coffee to a proper cup of tea. They’ll receive 10 tea bags, housed within their own compartments, and a drawer that reveals the next tea bag in the tasting journey.

The first contains a blend of 90% coffee and 10% Yorkshire tea, providing a familiar but intriguing intro to the tea world. The second is 80% coffee and 20% tea, and so on. As they move through each bag, the ratio shifts, allowing participants to experience the gradual transition from the intensity of coffee to do things properly…

By the final pour, participants will be won over and enjoy a PURE cup of Yorkshire Tea.

Huge thank you!

Thank you so much to everyone for supporting and sharing the Briefless Brief and to everyone who participated in Briefless Brief #2. You blew us away AGAIN. It's been amazing to see your creativity WITHOUT limits. 

Keep an eye on our social media channels for updates on the release date of the next brief.

Written by Jo Rammell
Senior Digital PR Specialist

Jo arrived at Evoluted towards the end of 2017, bringing several years’ digital experience with her. She cites the continuous innovation of new tools and how they can be utilised for targeting as being a key inspiration behind her interest in the industry.