Nestea is riding a nostalgia wave with its relaunch campaign for the Canadian market.
An energetic hero spot by agency partner LG2 portrays a woman with Nestea cans as hair curlers and an on-brand manicure, along with host of other colourful characters.
Timed to coincide with a key summer consumption period, Nestea is hitting the shelves at participating grocery and convenience stores, with Keurig Dr Pepper Canada taking over the ready-to-drink Nestea brand in Canada through a licensing agreement with Nestlé Canada.
Nestea RTD comes in four flavour SKUs, Lemon, Peach, Raspberry and Lemon Zero Sugar and is offered in four size formats and a tetra pack of 10.
“We know there’s real love for Nestea in Canada, [and] this campaign is built around the concept ‘Nothing’s Like Nestea,’ a nostalgic and emotionally driven story that reconnects Canadians with their favourite iced tea brand,” says Danielle Wedge, marketing director of Keurig Dr Pepper. “The creative strategy celebrates fan love and shared memories while re-introducing the ready-to-drink beverages in a fresh, relatable way.”
Wedge tells strategy that Keurig Dr Pepper wanted Nestea to hit the shelves in time for summer and before back-to-school season.
Earlier this year, competitor Coca-Cola also amped up the nostalgia factor with the launch of its Fuze Iced Tea a year after the beverage maker announced it was no longer producing or bottling iced tea under the third-party owned trademark Nestea.
“We’re always aware of what’s happening in the ready-to-drink tea category, including innovations from other players,” Wedge says. “That said, our focus for Nestea has been on understanding our Canadian consumers, their tastes, their priorities and what excites them in this category.”
Wedge says Keurig Dr Pepper has a “strong pulse” on what works in the RTD space and that its approach for Nestea is built from the company’s own insights and strategy, “not a replication of anyone else’s playbook.”
“Truthfully, we’re not really seeing confusion out there. People know Nestea … it’s a brand with a long history and a really clear identity,” Wedge says. “Our job has been to make sure that comes through, whether it’s at shelf, through our communication plans and brand activations, and most importantly, how it tastes.”
According to Keurig Dr Pepper Canada, the Nestea-in-RTD format presents a strong opportunity to meet consumer demand and drive category growth. The CPG says it is working closely with retail partners to ensure it’s well positioned to capture the opportunity.
Retail assets include in-store displays, coupons and flyers.
“As Nestea has been out of sight and out of mind for the last eight months, we needed high impact visuals that would help cue instant recognition and brand love,” Wedge says. “We did not have to look further than our very own product to achieve that in-store communication goal.”
Keurig Dr Pepper worked closely with retailers to help build programs that are catered to their shoppers in an attempt to “maximize every conversion opportunity, through the shopper omnichannel journey, meaning both in physical and digital retail spaces.”
Nestea Canada has also launched a brand new Drink Nestea microsite.
The latest campaign includes national paid media running across Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, programmatic online video, Roku, Crave, Tubi, Prime, Netflix and digital OOH. The placements are targeting iced tea drinkers, grocery shoppers and foodies to raise awareness of Nestea’s return.
On social, Nestea is leveraging influencer engagement and amplifying user-generated content. A social-specific “Nestea Stan” account was rolled out ahead of Nestea’s launch.
The brand will also be hosting a consumer activation created by Vibrant Marketing at Toronto’s Eaton Centre in late August called Nestea Corner Store, a retro retail-style experience with games, free merchandise and sampling.
“This is a big bet and focus for the Keurig Dr Pepper Canada cold beverage portfolio,” Wedge says. “To give you a sense of the scale, we are anticipating 63 million-plus projected impressions from the total campaign.”
Mosaic handled shopper marketing, Starcom the buy, Vibrant the XM and Craft Public Relations the communications.
