Barry's Tea: Give it time to brew: How Ireland's longest-running brand idea helped Barry's Tea to ride out the recession

This case describes how Barry's Tea, a family-owned tea company founded in 1901 in Cork City, proved the commercial value of a long-term, evolving, brand-building advertising idea.

Barry's Tea: Give it time to brew: How Ireland's longest-running brand idea helped Barry's Tea to ride out the recession

Agencies: Irish International and OMD

Introduction & Background

Source: Behaviour & Attitudes, Barry's Tea Advertising Research. October 2008.

In 2008, the Irish tea category was built around two pillar brands - Barry's Tea and Unilever-owned competitor, Lyon's - with any market developments largely occurring on the periphery1.

The tea category was stable and mature, with an average of 5.2 cups of tea drunk per day2. Ireland really is a tea-drinking nation.

As such, the category was...

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands