When Tetley researched what motivated consumers to purchase its herbal tea products, the results it found were surprising, says Tetley brand manager Sarah Molloy.

While other food stuffs and beverages are motivated by a need or taste, focus group testing revealed that herbal tea buyers base their purchase decisions on emotion, such as the need for calm or energy.

In response, the company tailored a new campaign targeted at 25- to 54-year-old women focusing on just that.

The ‘Colour Therapy’ campaign, which recently launched on TV, urges consumers to visit the campaign microsite to find out what their herbal tea colour is. The site has two streams: ‘Find your colour’ and ‘Find everyone’s colour.’ The ‘Your colour’ stream opens a quiz-style page in which you share the time of day, the weather and your feelings. Based on your answer, the site tells you what colour you are and what kind of tea will best complement your mood. Users can then share their colours with their social media pals with the click of a button.

The ‘Everyone’ stream gives users a map of the colour mood of Canada, based on Tweeters’ posts.

The microsite is the hub of the campaign and all creative – handled by John St. in Toronto – drives to the site. Starting this week, an online display component is being added to the campaign, including buys on Chatelaine.com, CanadianLiving.com, and Yahoo.ca. Media on the campaign was handled by The Media Company in Toronto. Additionally, a ‘Colour Therapy’ Facebook page will be launched Nov. 11.

The campaign is slated to continue until March 2011.