Communication Is A Virus Evaluation

1. As a group what problem did you identify and why in response to 'drink tea'?

We identified what tea is associated with, mostly relaxing after a days work, a pass time that fits in with the lifestyles of working professionals who need that down time. As well as this tea has a reputation for represented a British 'stiff upper lip'. We wanted to change that by creating this 'tea is cool' ethos and incorporating into the lives of students and young professionals.

What methods did you use to gather your evidence to prove this was a problem and what forms did it take? (primary, secondary, qualitative, quantitative)

When doing research into other brands of tea, almost all the websites tried desperately to capitalise on the British theme, the use of Union Jacks, London Buses etc, a theme which in my opinion is extremely overdone. When looking at some of the tea brands on sale in Harvey Nichols, a few more tried to appear natural and pure, a concept that I was quite interested in implementing but that wouldn't contribute to the 'tea is cool' idea.

What methods of research did you find useful and why?

Our secondary Research proved most useful given that we were trying to do something completely different to all the existing brands. This made it easy to see what other brands had done and almost do the opposite so that we wouldn't fall into a trap of being similar to any other brands. It was the secondary research that contributed to our decision to make our own brand, since we'd seen nothing that was in-keeping with our theme.

What research could you have carried out that would have proved more useful?

Spending more time and actually documenting primary research could have really helped us decide how to make our brand fit the target audience perfectly, enabling us to have more success when it came to making the brand viral. Actually talking and documenting students and young professionals interest in a new brand of tea aimed at them would have helped us identify what areas required more attention.

How did you manage the workload as part of a group?

For the first time in any group I have been the workload was split very well. Initially we struggled as we were still coming up with a concept and plan for the first week, delaying us starting on the actual practical side, but once we had the idea clearly laid out we listed everything that needed to be done and assigned people to different areas based on their strengths. It was fairly evenly distributed and when someone was struggling more under their load others did help them out when they had the time. As a result, despite setting ourselves quite an ambitious project and therefore the workload being quite high, we were able to finish it effectively with everyone's help.

In spite of the success of the branding design and production, we were side-stepped by it and became so distracted by making it perfect that we didn't spend the amount of time on promotion that we could and should have, meaning that we didn't fit the brief as effectively as we had the potential to.