The brand story Lipton

Lipton is the world's largest tea brand. It stands for a specialist in tea, but also symbolises an international, stylish and urban lifestyle. For over 100 years, Lipton has maintained the quality and aroma that has been handed down through the generations.

Thomas Lipton, born in 1850 in Glasgow, England, to a poor family, was the founder of the brand. On one of his trips, Lipton came to Ceylon, a famous black tea region. Ceylon black tea is a very popular drink in the UK, but because of its high price, it is only available to the upper class. Lipton was sensitive to the fact that black tea could be a good business if it could be introduced into the everyday life of the public.

In 1890 he officially launched Lipton Black Tea in the UK. His advertising slogan was "Direct from teag arden to the teapot" (good tea straight from the tea garden).

In 1892, Lipton began its globalisation campaign, first with a factory in the United States, then in India, entering the Far East, and in 1898, Lipton was knighted by the Queen of England as the 'King of the World's Black Teas'.

In 1972, 80 years after the old Lipton began its global expansion, Lipton's history took a turn for the worse when Unilever, the world's most famous consumer goods group, acquired the entire Lipton brand. Since then, Lipton has been on the global wheel of Unilever and has embarked on an even stronger path of expansion.

Combining the marketing experience of Lipton and Unilever, Lipton's tea products are now sold in 110 countries worldwide. Lipton is the world's number one tea brand in terms of both popularity and sales, at least double the sales of the second largest brand. Lipton is also now the third most popular non-alcoholic beverage among consumers worldwide, after Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

In 1992, Lipton entered China, the country with the longest history of tea drinking and the largest number of tea drinkers in the world. Just five years later, Lipton was ranked number one in sales and number one in market share of tea bags in a series of surveys conducted by 100 shopping centres in China.

While the black tea bags were well received by consumers, Lipton also launched new green tea bags and jasmine tea bags to suit the taste of Chinese consumers. In 2004, Lipton launched a range of instant teas, including milk tea and lemon tea, and in 2005, it launched a range of herbal tea bags.

[1]A. (2020, December 16). The success story of Thomas Lipton, the world’s first tea emperor. Tek Deeps. https://tekdeeps.com/the-success-story-of-thomas-lipton-the-worlds-first-tea-emperor/

[2]Author, L. (2020, July 9). History of Lipton Tea From The 1800s Through To Today. Lipton US. https://www.lipton.com/us/en/our-purpose/the-history-of-lipton-tea.html

[3]Wikipedia contributors. (2021, December 23). Lipton. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipton [4]KOEHLER, J. (2016, October 25). NPR Cookie Consent and Choices. NPR. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://choice.npr.org/index.html?origin=https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/10/25/498863411/-from-tea-garden-to-teapot-how-lipton-became-an-empire?t=1643021824158

Yibin ZHANG