Here in the U.S., where 83 percent of adults are self-proclaimed coffee drinkers, tea is generally marketed as something genteel—a soothing beverage to be sipped while relaxing in your sitting room, not guzzled throughout the day from a giant Dunkin' Donuts mug. But in the U.K., tea still reigns supreme as the hot beverage of choice, even among the younger set, about half of whom say they drink a cuppa every morning.
That classically British obsession with tea is used to excellent effect in "The Tea Song," Yorkshire Tea's new musical spot that pitches tea as more than just a morning pick-me-up. The drink, it claims, is a common cure-all for everything from heartbreak to zombie attacks.
The spot opens with a young woman in the midst of breaking up with her significant other. "You'll be fine, you just need a cup of tea," she advises, before breaking into a quirky original song—reminiscent, in its darker moments, of "Dumb Ways to Die," with physical staging that's Old Spice-like—describing myriad other ailments that can also be easily remedied with tea, from the mundane (a grumpy boss) to the serious (an arrow to the knee) to the completely absurd ("I even heard it made a blind man see!").
Considering the ferocity of Britons' love for tea—about a quarter of them drink five or more cups a day, while 1 in 20 drink more than 10 cups—those claims may not come off as terribly far-fetched to certain viewers. (Still, Yorkshire helpfully adds a disclaimer at the end, stating, "Some of the facts in this film may be wishful and/or untrue.")
As for Americans who still associate tea drinking with their octogenarian grandmothers, learning that a teacup can be used to defeat an army of the undead may well help improve the drink's image on this side of the pond.
CREDITS
Client: Yorkshire Tea
Agency: Rubber Republic