THE CHALLENGE:

On any given summer day, Lipton had no trouble persuading people to satisfy their thirst with a tall glass of sparkling Lipton Ice. Their challenge was finding a way to get people to drink the cold, but refreshing, drink when the winds of winter were howling and the temperature outside nipped at the fingers and toes.

Positioned as a sporty, self-confident, non-conformist brand, wildly popular Lipton Ice Tea had never been marketed as an ‘all-weather’ product.

Faced with such a monumental challenge, the conventional approach would have been for Lipton to conduct market research to find new ways to position its popular but seasonal product, but instead, Lipton turned to Synecticsworld, a decidedly more courageous path but one that they knew would produce a more innovative solution.

THE PROCESS:

Synecticsworld facilitated a session of Lipton Ice management and marketing people to generate creative ideas for de-seasonalizing the product.

Using Synecticsworld’s creative thinking tools to broaden the task, the team began by asking the following questions:

• How can we credibly convince consumers that Lipton Ice is refreshing in the winter?
• How do we make use of existing channels, which include sales, retail, and media events?
• What is the best way to build an effective, year-round marketing program?

The Synecticsworld-led team also introduced the valuable lessons learned from Lipton’s small but successful snowboarding event, ‘Lipton Ice Mountain Madness’.

THE RESULTS:

Using Synecticsworld insight-led innovation, the team quickly recognized that the ‘Mountain Madness’ event represented a powerful idea and decided to make ‘Mountain Madness’ the central theme of all communication during the de-seasonalizing campaign. Synecticsworld then helped the group develop the initial ideas and create a plan for action.

The Lipton Ice Mountain Madness campaign that emerged from the workshop was extensive and hugely successful.

Encompassing print, radio, in-store displays, events and several internet sites, the innovative ideas generated by the Synecticsworld-led team helped Lipton achieve ‘hot sales’ in the middle of Ole Man’s Winter’s icy grip.