The Tea Council hires Threepipe to make tea 'cool again'

Threepipe is charged with targeting the 20- to 25-year-old market using fashion tie-ins and promoting the health benefits of tea.

The agency won the brief, thought to be worth around £250,000, after a pitch process that included incumbent Nexus PR and Bell Pottinger’s Leeds University-based student agency Ptarmigan Academy. Nexus will continue to work with the Council  to promote the health benefits of tea.

Threepipe co-founder Jim Hawker said: ‘We’re going to target the young people who choose to drink coffee or water over tea and we’re putting together a three-year plan to make tea cool again.’

The agency will be working on a series of tea pop-up shops that all have a British fashion theme to help lift the image of the drink. Threepipe will also kick-start the council’s social media activities to help attract a young, social media-savvy audience.

The agency’s associate director Kate Simpson will head up the account and report to Bill Gorman, chairman of the UK Tea Council.