Chapter 33\ Turning MECCA Pilgrims into brand ambassadors

Raymond Hanna called T.G. Peiris to a brainstorming session at the agency. My notes on the Gulf tour I had taken with the client were our agenda for that meeting. We all agreed that Saudi Arabia was the market with the greatest potential, although it being a bulk tea market where tea is bought by weight from large wooden chests, made it extremely difficult to differentiate between Ceylon and the tea imported from other origins. Some of the finest advertising and PR practitioners were at our brainstorming meeting, and this opened our eyes to the fact that the Hajj (pilgrimage) season, which brings around a million visitors to Mecca, was an opportunity to promote Ceylon Tea, not only in the local market, but to a much wider audience.

The meeting was adjourned with a major resolution to explore avenues to promote Ceylon Tea to the Indonesian, Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, Turkish, Malaysian, Filipino, Russian, Nigerian, and other nationality pilgrims. All of whom were a captive audience in Jeddah, Mecca, and Madinah over the 10-day period of the Hajj. We immediately embarked on an exploration of everything related to the Hajj and instantly realized that the fifth pillar of Islam has a comprehensive set of rites and prayers, which are to be learned and recited to complete this religious obligation.

However, clear guidelines did not seem to exist, particularly in the different languages of the pilgrims. This led us to the idea of publishing a handy booklet that explains it all and making such a booklet available in as many languages as possible. Obviously, these booklets were meant to be distributed with the compliments of Ceylon Tea. We approached the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs with great hesitation, as we were concerned that it would reject any attempt to mix commercial business with religion. Moreover, there was a risk of developing a negative stance towards Sri Lanka and its tea board. This is why we were elated when we received its approval. It was, as a government ministry, being continuously challenged by embassies and the organizers of pilgrim groups to make such guidelines available. We sourced from the ministry the guidelines that pilgrims needed during the Hajj, and what must be categorically avoided, and we printed Arabic and English brochures carrying a message of compliments from Ceylon Tea on their back covers. We then arranged for the translation of the booklet into Indonesian Bahasa, with a plan to add more foreign languages every year.

The Ceylon Tea Board shipped a large quantity of small promotional tea packs to be given away with the booklets. As the pilgrims began arriving at the Hajj terminal at Jeddah Airport, we got young male samplers (wearing Ceylon Tea branded t-shirts) to board the busses and to hand a booklet and a pack of Ceylon Tea to the white-clad (Ihram dress) pilgrims as a welcome gesture, which was so well received.

By the time most of pilgrims had moved to Mecca, we realized a quantity of the English language booklets were still undistributed. At that moment, we got the samplers to rush to where the last few planeloads of Indian pilgrims had been spending the night at the terminal. As soon as the one-on-one distribution operation began, hundreds of pilgrims rushed towards the four samplers and grabbed as many packs of tea as they could. As the Hajj is closely monitored by the Saudi authorities, a squad of police cars suddenly appeared on the scene and arranged for the quick dispersal of the Indian pilgrims.

The Ceylon Tea Hajj campaign proved to be a very exciting success story, which was copied by others in the following years.