Hoping to capture a greater share of the high-end tea market, Starbucks has launched a new campaign in Canada promoting its Tazo brand.

Through its fancy tin packaging and silky tea sachets, Tazo has long positioned itself as a premium product in Starbucks locations and retail outlets.

The new campaign, with creative by BBDO Toronto and media by MediaCom in Vancouver, is aiming to build on that image with a wider audience, Teresa Guarascio, VP media director of MediaCom’s Vancouver office, said in a release.

The media plan supporting the campaign – targeting females 20 to 44 years old – is quite extensive, including print ads in the Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Province and Globe and Mail, as well as magazine ads in Rogers pubs Flare, Loulou, Glow, Chatelaine, Today’s Parent, and Hello!, as well as ads in Best Health, Running Room Magazine, House and Home and Fashion. Sampling programs were also set up with Chatelaine and Glow, as well as at two spa locations in Toronto and Vancouver.

The campaign also includes interactive storefronts, created by The Media Merchants, at a Starbucks location in Toronto and Vancouver. The screens will feature creative from the campaign – butterflies and other cute critters that represent the tea flavours – and allow users to navigate the characters, via touchscreen, to collect all the ingredients to make a Tazo tea, explains Harpreet Dhaliwal, senior media executive, MediaCom Vancouver. All the items are collected onto a ‘virtual passport,’ and at the end, Tazo brand messaging appears. Night projections and billboards have also been arranged as part of the campaign.

Homepage takeovers on the websites of Flare, Loulou, Glow, Today’s Parent, and Chatelaine are scheduled, as well as homepage and channel takeovers on Canoe.ca. The campaign launched Jan. 4 with a Yahoo! mail login page takeover and rich media units were purchased on MSN, Olive Media and the Glam online ad network.

Finally, Starbucks is hosting Tazo Tea Time events until Jan. 16, offering customers half-price lattes from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m. each day. The retailer is offering customers SMS reminders for the daily events.

Starbucks last week unveiled its new wordless logo in the US. The logo is set to appear in Canada starting in March, on promotional merchandise and paper goods.