• by Aaron Baar , October 24, 2014

The days are getting shorter, the temperatures are dropping, the leaves are turning. It’s officially “tea season.”

To mark the time when curling up under a blanket with a steaming mug of tea, Traditional Medicinals, which makes medicinal tea, is launching a new campaign to unite a tribe of “Plant People,” looking for natural remedies for various maladies.

“It builds on the idea that plants possess great power,” Carl Henricksen, senior brand manager at Traditional Medicinals, tells Marketing Daily. “It helps bring to life the quality of our products and the quality of our tea to enjoy herbs.”

The effort, from Haberman in Minneapolis, is intended to educate people about the medicinal benefits of the pharmacopeial-grade the company uses to create its therapeutic teas. “A sure sign of premium echinacea, used by a number of Native American tribes for hundreds of years, is a tingly tongue at first sip,” reads the copy. “In addition to the tingling, after a while you’ll also feel something else: yourself again.” The tagline: “Plant power for a better you.”

Print advertising, which features people photographed savoring a cup of tea, is inspired by the number of “tea selfies” the agency came across during image searches for tea online.

“We found hundreds and hundred of photos of people wrapped up underneath blankets and wool socks with their tea,” Nathan Rice, director of connections and engagement, at Haberman, says. 

The effort also includes a foray into content marketing and brand publishing, creating an online “Plant Power Journal,” which will share articles and other insights into the medicinal power of the plants Traditional Medicinals uses in its teas. 

“There’s more of an appreciation of [herbal remedies] today than there was five or 10 years ago, but we still have this challenge of getting the mainstream to accept plants as medicine,” says Renee Rice, account director at Haberman. “If we can connect with people, we think they can become not only purchasers of the product, but true brand advocates.”

Print advertising will appear in magazines such as Yoga Journal, Eating Well, Organic Gardening, Real Simple, Dr. Oz, and Women’s Health, while the digital campaign will appear on sites such as AOL, Huffington Post and the Weather Channel (timed to cold-weather forecasts). The effort will run through March 2015.