Numi Tea

Source: http://www.cengagebrain.com/content/boone8203x_032458203x_01.01_toc.pdf

Numi Tea founders, siblings Ahmed and Reem Rahim, immigrated to the United States when they
were young children and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. Reem became a biomedical engineer. Ahmed
traveled the world as a photographer and settled for a time in Prague where he opened two tea shops.
Reem eventually left her career to pursue life as an artist. In 1999, the two reconnected in Oakland,
California, and started Numi Tea in Remm’s Apartment.
“I think in the positioning our brand, we wanted to target a certain type of customer base, from
the natural health food stores, to fine dining and hotels, to universities and coffee shops, gourmet
stores,” says Ahmend. “ What I’ve seen most surprised about in our growth is the mass market
consumer”. In recent years, demand by the average American consumer for organic and ethically
produced products has exploded. At the same time, economic influences have driven the more affluent
and natural foods consumer to large discounters such as Target, super-sized grocery chains, warehouse
clubs and online shopping.
Today, explains Jennifer Mullin, vice president of marketing of Numi Tea, the average Numi
consumer is female, college educated, and buys two to three boxes of tea per month, usually green tea.
She also buys organic products whenever possible. All of these details, while not surprising, are fairly
new. Until Mullin joined the team and formalized their marketing department, Numi assumed their
customers fit the same profile as the staff- young, cool, and urban. While many of Numi tea drinkers are
all these things, Mullin’s findings proved that the company needed to put some additional energy
toward targeting the younger, college market. They launched an initiative to raise awareness of the
product on campuses where people are more inclined to be interested in issues of sustainability, fair-
trade, and organics. Because Numi teas are considered a premium product, they do have an affordable,
but still higher price point than conventionally produced teas. College students in general have less
money to spend, so Numi approached the food service departments of universities such as Stanford to
serve the tea as part of their prepaid meal plans. Not only does the food service contract represent a
giant account, it encourages trial. Sampling is Numi’s most successful marketing activity for attracting
new users. Students can learn to love the product, essentially for free.
The most compelling reason for drinking Numi tea is its health benefits. The company found that
they don’t need to spend much time talking up the organic aspect of their product. In the premium and
natural space where Numi operates, organic is expected. There is the threat that as the terms “organic”
and “natural” invade the mainstream marketplace, a lack of trust or cynicism may arise as some
products will inevitably fail to live up their labels’ claims. This is why Numi relies heavily on educating
its consumers about the product. When targeting women, their most valued consumer, says Jennifer,
“we have an in-house PR team that works a lot with editors (of women’s magazines) to educated them
on tea and make sure they understand the healthy properties of tea.” They follow up with sampling at
Whole Foods or events targeted toward environmentally conscious moms. Numi rounds out the
education efforts on its Web site with more health information as well as in-depth articles on the
benefits of specific teas.
Although still young, the Numi brand is expanding rapidly and has enjoyed success overseas as
well. Whatever the marketing and PR teams do- store sampling, environmental events, or partnerships
with like-minded companies such as Clif Bar-they continue to survey and asses the demographic and
psychographic profiles of their consumer.

Questions:
1. How will you describe the Target market of Numi Tea? Explain
2. What is the marketing mix used by Numi Tea? Discuss the combination.
3. How is Numi Tea Differentiated from its industry? Give details.