Vahdam Teas was chosen in both 2018 and 2019 as one of Oprah Winfrey’s ‘Favourite Things’. Being featured on this list was a very important event for the brand, as this gave them exponentially more exposure which translated to increased sales. However, Vahdam Teas’ main cause for happiness was that with the increase in their sales, more funds could be provided to their TEAch Me Foundation, in which 1% of their revenue is dedicated towards funding the higher education of their tea workers’ children.

 

The brand wanted to create a communication piece for their American audiences that highlighted the impact that resulted from being featured in the ‘Favourite Things’ list. Their goal was also to showcase this piece to Oprah as a gesture of thanks, as well as to show her how being chosen as one of her favourite things helped improve the lives of children in India.

If we were to create a piece that would appeal to Oprah, there were two things we wanted to avoid:

 

Our challenge was talking about the TEAch Me Foundation in a way that did not focus on poverty, hunger, lack of development or any of the other elements of rural India that are often emphasised by filmmakers. We also had to seamlessly bring in the fact that Vahdam Teas was chosen as one of Oprah’s favourite things. It was challenging, but we found a way. Here’s what we did:

 

The concept of Oprah’s Favourite Things was inspired by the song of the same name in The Sound of Music. This film is an American classic and is familiar to all audiences. So in order to create a piece that showcased India in a way that was not stereotypical and yet appealed to American audiences, we created a version of the song “Favourite Things” with lyrics personalized to the children of the tea estates. The children performed the song as a thank you to Oprah for choosing them as one of her favourite things and thereby helping them further their education.

 

The final communication piece was a documentation of the children learning and performing this song, interspersed with an introduction of the TEAch Me foundation and its purpose, as well as the impact Oprah Winfrey created for this foundation by featuring Vahdam Teas as one of her favourite things.