Typhoo is bought out of administration – but is the brand weak tea?
YouGov’s chief executive Steve Hatch takes a closer look at the data behind the biggest stories in business.
This week, Typhoo was bought out of administration for £10m by the Mancunian vape-maker Supreme. The tea-maker had been in financial trouble in recent years, and the new owners have pledged to outsource manufacturing and reduce overheads.
But in a crowded marketplace are these the only problems the newly-acquired Typhoo will face?
Data from YouGov BrandIndex shows that the company underperforms the coffee and tea sector in terms of public perception. Index scores, a measure of overall brand health calculated by polling consumers every day, are at 10.2 for Typhoo; for the wider sector, they are three times this at 30.6. While much has been made of its status as Britain’s oldest teamaker, its competitors are on average held in greater esteem.
The picture is only slightly better when we look at Impression scores, which measure general sentiment towards a brand. Typhoo’s scores are at 15.0 for this metric; the average is twice that, at 31.1. Its heritage has not translated into greater likability – or at least if it once did, it has since dwindled.
Further problems are evident when we look at perceptions of Typhoo’s product more directly. Quality scores are 13.0 compared to an average of 30.6 for British tea and coffee brands; when it comes to Value for Money, its scores are 4.4 next to a sector-wide score of 12.2. Fairly or unfairly, there’s a perception that its product is inferior to the average, and this may have contributed to a lower Customer Satisfaction score (10.8) next to the wider industry (25.1). Perhaps tea-drinkers are no longer getting an ‘oo’ from their Typhoo.
We could partly attribute this to savvy branding on the part of the competition. Competitors like Yorkshire Tea and PG Tips have come up with well-known taglines, mascots and star-studded marketing campaigns; Typhoo’s Ad Awareness, by contrast, sits at 1.5 next to an average of 6.5 for the industry. While the owners have stated their intention to cut costs, it might be worth backing the brand’s marketers with extra investment.
In any case, our data shows that reducing overheads may not be the one-size-fits-all solution to Typhoo’s woes. Solving its current image problem could require more creative solutions.