The ceremony of serving tea is a sacred one anywhere in the world you go to. Take Great Britain for example. Or China. Japan. India… And the list goes on. This ritual is so much appreciated because it offers time for long chats. Lately, because of the advances in technology, we choose screens instead of tea. That’s right. We’d rather keep our eyes in our smartphones and virtually talk to friends than actually calling them and asking to please meet us face-to-face to catch things up. So what can be done to get rid of this bad habit of ours?

Tea brand Lipton has a solution: you pause all of your gadgets for just five minutes to get a chance to talk. Oh, but is this in our power? Are we strong enough to leave our devices for a few minutes to ask our companions what they’ve been up to? Clearly not, but don’t you worry, as the tea company is here to buy us some time.

In Turkey, tea is very much appreciated by people because it is proved to be the glue of long gatherings. For Lipton, having a cup of tea basically means enabling long-lasting conversations. Sadly, people are not drinking as much tea as the brand wants to believe. Nor do they talk to their families or friends. To make people aware that they are spending precious time on gadgets, Lipton came up with a disruptive strategy which is aimed to make people reconnect. So far so good, but what can possibly be in the brand’s head to stop users from playing with their latest-technology devices?

Chill, because the answer is in this week’s #ThrowBrandThursday column. The strategy of the Lipton Silent Prime Time project is all about and around media. The intention was to make people aware of the decision they make when they choose their smartphones over the family. This is why, Lipton decided to silence the screens on prime time, both TV and digital, using the very same devices that limit human interaction as a communication platform to empower people to catch things up over a cup of tea.

Medina Turgul DDB creative agency is responsible for this idea, which portrays tea as a social glue. The Istanbul-based agency contoured the hot drink not only as of the official companion of long-lasting conversations, but it also convinced a TV media to broadcast a 5-minute-long ad across 17 largest national channels. The concept was created to help Lipton stimulate conversation. “The ‘Silent Prime Time’ was our conversation igniter and Lipton’s all agencies were ready to reserve together, to take necessary actions that’d boost the effect of the disruption,” says the creative team behind this project.

Lipton ended up silencing the most important screen in Turkey for 5 minutes on prime time. What does this mean? 13 million people were reached, #timetotalk became an organic trend topic in 15 minutes, and it generated 300 million impressions, and the campaign was featured in news, editorials, and talk-shows. Politicians, journalists, and bloggers joined the conversation about how disconnected we are and started to take Lipton’s initiative very seriously.

Now, it is curious how a tea brand teaches us to reconnect, whilst others came up with an idea to stay online. Like Chakra Tea did previously: The brand from central India created an innovative tea-kettle that distributes Wi-Fi signal when it gets heated. So, now, workers have the possibility to chat with their families at home. Still, this means that the workers won’t talk to each other anymore. But they get the chance to connect with the world while also enjoying a sip of their favorite sweet tea.

We aren’t sure which brand did it better. Yet, we are open-minded, so we are waiting for your opinions to contour our own one. Please, share your comments about both campaigns in the dedicated section below!

Credits:

Client: Lipton

Agency: Medina Turgul DDB

Executive Creative Director: Gökhan Erol

Creative Director: Ertuğ Tuğalan

Creative Group Head, Art Director: Namık Ergin

Art Director: Aybikem Alemdar

Copywriters: Emre Altundağ, Cihan Metin Üstek

Photographer: Emre Çoban

Group Chief Executive Officer: Lawrence Dupre

Account Director: Azize Civanbay

Account Executives: Natali Levi, Dilge Yıldırım

Production Agency: PROFILM

General Manager: Gülengül Arlıel

Head Of Production: Ümit Bak

Producer: Nisan Turgul

Director: Ali Demirel