AdMiration feature: PG Tips’ “At Home With Monkey”

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we looked at consumer response to PG Tips’ “At Home With Monkey” ad, which is part of their new campaign and creative platform called “Live life one tea at a time.” 

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

The ad opens to PG Tips' iconic Monkey mascot reading a newspaper (all about tea) at home, when he calls out to his wife Alice, played by comedian and actor, Emily Atack, who comes to the top of the staircase in pajamas when he asks, “Cuppa tea?” Set in a reality TV style, the scene pans to both Monkey and the Mrs. getting their hair and makeup done. Once ready, both grab a cup of tea in PG branding, and Monkey says, “Let’s brew this!” 

The at-home interview then begins, starting with the question: How did you two meet? with Mrs. M answering, “We met at that celebrity dance show, didn’t we? He just took my breath away.” To which Monkey replies, “So did the Samba…gave me a stitch.” She retorts, giggling, “You actually are made of stitches, so...” 

The scene pans to a close up of Monkey stirring a cup of PG tea during a break, asking the children to simmer down. As a ball flies at his head in response, Mrs. M shouts, “Right, Chai and Earl, pack it in!” The camera then pans back to the couple on the interview couch, where Monkey shares, “We just take it one tea at a time.”    

In a cheeky nod to the recent David and Victoria Beckham documentary, Mrs. M is shown denying that she takes sugar with her tea, while Monkey pops open the door to repeatedly say, “Be honest…” until she finally states, “Three sugars.”

The interview continues as a camera crew follows both around, asking questions that compare their love for each other with PG tea (revealing a whole closet full). In the final setting, Mrs. M is shown relaxing in a giant PG cup hot tub, trying to coax Monkey to join her. 

The ad closes with Mrs. M saying that “We are 100% real.” To which Monkey replies, “Well, mostly...” as he pokes at himself. They conclude with a photoshoot of the two of them cheering cups of PG tea in the kitchen as the words “Live life one tea at a time” with the PG logo appears onscreen. 

3 facts

• This is an exceptional ad from PG Tips on their return to TV with Monkey, landing in the top 2% of UK ads for potential to drive sales (Sales Impact: 99) and longer term brand equity (Brand Impact: 98).

• Viewers knew it could only be an ad for PG Tips largely due the return of Monkey. When asked what helped them realize it was an ad for PG Tips, over a third of people talk about Monkey! This is one of the most powerful brand assets we’ve ever seen driving immediate connection and warmth with the brand. 

• Levels of emotional engagement are exceptional, achieving an overall emotion score of 61 versus a norm of 44. This is done through the wonderful combination of love (34 versus average of 21) and laughter (17 versus average of 7) in the ad. Early emotional engagement is established as soon as Monkey appears and then sustained through the warm and funny relationship between Monkey and Alice.

2 learnings

• A mascot can be an instantly recognizable brand asset and so much more! Not only did 95% of people know it was a PG Tips ad because of Monkey, driving a brand recall score of 81% versus a norm of 72%, but he also drives emotional engagement with the ad and for the brand. Over a third of people talked about Monkey as their key source of likes, with the ad starting with a peak in love and like as soon as Monkey appears. Monkey plays a huge role in creating brand appeal for PG Tips (4.0 versus a norm of 3.7). This is a great example of excellent DBA (distinctive brand asset) development, which only helps to drive higher brand recall — which PG unsurprisingly knocked out of the park at nearly 10 points higher than the norm.

• Entertainment is a wonderful route to mental availability for your brand. This story gets it all right. The characters; people love Monkey. The relationship; people love the playfulness, banter and relationship between Monkey and Alice. The story; highly relatable and has so many moments of humor to bring the relationship to life and keep people engaged. When asked what people liked about the ad, someone went as far as to describe it as ‘like watching comedy drama’ which is a high compliment and something ads should strive for.

1 reflection

Is there anything from your past that could be refreshed and serve your brand today? It could be a creative platform, a brand character, an insight or much more. People love familiarity and if you can benefit from that with a refresh, we see time and time again how it drives success. This ad is a great example of resurrecting a brand character while also making it relevant to today. Injecting a current celeb, using a style of ‘at home with’ which is popular today and playing on recent culture like the Beckham documentary scene brings Monkey right up to date. All the love. All the branding. And all relevant to today. One respondent summed it up beautifully: “The revival of Monkey is vintage bliss!”

Created by NCA, part of Ogilvy Group UK, PG Tips’ latest campaign and creative platform called “Live life one tea at a time” features their well-known (but briefly retired) Monkey mascot, this time with comedian and actor, Emily Atack, playing alongside as his wife. 

This true-to-form reality TV style ad was directed by Si & Ad and produced by Academy, with social media and consumer PR activations by The Romans.

Elle Barker, CMO, Lipton Teas shared, “From the very first conversation we had with NCA, we knew they truly got the heart of the brand and the ambition behind the brief. I'm incredibly proud of the work we've created together — it's bold, funny and absolutely captures the chaos of family life and the role that tea plays for so many British families. ‘Live life one tea at a time’ puts Monkey and the brand back in the spotlight and kicks off a brand new chapter for PG Tips.”

On working with PG Tips, Dan Seager & Steve Hall, Executive Creative Directors, New Commercial Arts, said, “It’s been an absolute joy to work with the team at PG Tips. We were eager to create a campaign that did justice to such an iconic, fabric-of-the-nation brand and brought to life the fact that, whatever life throws at you, nothing beats a good cup of PG. And no one knows that better than Monkey. The nation has clearly missed him and persuading him to come back into the limelight has been a career high.”

The spot launched across social and YouTube May 7th and went live nationwide across TV and VOD on May 9th, accompanied by a limited edition Monkey pack and shopper activations. 

This ad is a spectacular lesson in clever creative fully harnessed for the brand! “At Home With Monkey” performed exceptionally well with consumers, landing in the top 2% of UK ads for potential to drive sales and longer term brand equity (Sales Impact: 99, Brand Impact: 98).

It's highly distinctive (Distinctiveness: 4.1 vs. 3.7 norm), entertaining  and enjoyable (Enjoyment: 4.1 vs. 3.7 norm) while putting Monkey front and center to drive strong branding and an emotional connection. Not only that, but it also has clever placement of both category cues (tea) and the logo throughout the household setting.  

With the PG Tips product and brand character both playing a big role in the story of the ad — (61% mention “tea” when playing back the story, 44% mention monkey, 40% mention “PG” and 31% mention “Tips”) — it’s no surprise that people easily remember the PG Tips name from the ad (Brand Recall: 81% vs. 72% norm), with 35% of people saying “monkey” is the reason they recognized the brand, a true indicator of the power of a well-established DBA. 

After viewing the ad, audiences felt that the brand delivered what they expect from a tea brand (Brand Meets Needs: 4.1 vs. 3.8 norm), that PG Tips is different from other tea brands (Brand Distinctiveness: 3.9 vs. 3.5 norm) the ad makes them feel good about the PG Tips brand (Brand Appeal: 4.0 vs. 3.7 norm) and that it had a strong celebrity choice (Celebrity appeal: 3.9 vs. 3.3 norm), with people saying things like "I like the relationship between the monkey and the woman, and the last part where she sat in the cup of tea as though it's a bathtub" and "I quite liked the humour coming from monkey and he is quite iconic to PG Tips having done other similar commercials."

In addition to making people feel like it meets their needs and was appealing, the ad was also able to communicate important things about PG Tips tea, with 57% saying it has “great taste,” 54% say it is “good for everyday drinking” and 50% say it’s a “trusted brand.”

This all ladders up to the high purchase uplift score of 28% (vs. 15% norm), with only 17% considering the brand before watching the ad, jumping to 45% afterwards — which is no easy feat! What’s more, it also helps improve the mental availability of PG Tips with consumers again after an erosion over the years largely due to Yorkshire Tea's long running, highly effective creative platform.

Finally, positive emotions were abound in this spot, driven by high scores for both love (34% vs. 21% norm) and laughter (17% vs. 7% norm) and an overall emotion score of an astonishing 61 vs. 44 norm. 

This goes to show the impact great storytelling, when infused with humor and DBAs, can have, which can be seen in the peak emotional reactions throughout the spot. 

The ad starts it all off with a peak of “Like” as audiences recognize the PG Tips monkey. From there, there are multiple peaks of laughter at all the jokes, like when Alice says “Monkey is made of stitches”, when the kids’ names “Chai” and “Earl” are mentioned and are told to “pack it in!” (something many families can relate to), the recreation of the iconic Victoria and David Beckham moment, when Alice says that Monkey’s “butterflies could be moths” and when it’s revealed that their hot tub is a big cup of tea. And it all ends with the highest peak of love when the tagline comes in. 

Overall, there were several key elements that drove the success of this spot: Great use of characters through both Monkey and Alice (Emily), the playfulness and rapport between these characters, the relatable family set up, the humor (which resonates widely) and the added bonus of tapping into cultural moments and trends.

Here’s what some people had to say about the ad:

• "I like the relationship between the monkey and the woman, and the last part where she sat in the cup of tea as though it's a bathtub."

• "I like the fact that it was an advertisement but it was like I was watching a comedy drama because it was really funny."

• "I quite liked the humour coming from monkey and he is quite iconic to PG Tips having done other similar commercials."

• "The 2 characters, the corny jokes and niggles if the couple just like real life marriage."

• "I love the monkey in his dressing gown. I like the cupboard full of tea."

• "I like the banter between the woman and monkey; it's playful."

Overall, this is a wonderful, feel good ad that cleverly celebrates the 50 years of the brand, by celebrating the joy it has brought to so many over the years.

We loved this clever, reality TV-style spot from PG Tips! What did you think? Let us know by interacting with our coverage of the ad on LinkedIn.

To make sure you never miss one of our AdMiration analyses, subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter.