Sri Lanka’s much delayed Global Tea Promotion Campaign has become a money spender without any substantial results, government audit inspection revealed.
Rs.4.5 billion global tea promotion had been launched in Russia, followed by Japan, China and Ukraine, the Sri Lanka Tea Board (SLTB) said
Dentsu Grant received mandate for consultancy services for media planning, scheduling and buying the Rs. 4.5 billion campaign, the single largest initiative to market the Ceylon Tea brand globally
The Sri Lanka Tea Board awarded a Rs. 219 million media contract to Dentsu Grant to commence a global marketing campaign for Ceylon Tea.
The campaign aims to re-establish the premium position of Ceylon Tea in 12 priority markets and reinforce its association with the Lion Logo, the symbol of premium quality.
This private company had been selected for production and creative activities of the Global Tea Promotion Campaign which had been planned to be implemented by utilizing Rs.8 billion from earnings of Tea Promotion Fund and incurred Rs.199.67 million for commercials and creative work.
The programme could not be implemented as expected due to incompletion of media activities.
Moreover, as compared with the preceding year, promotion expenditure had been overspent in the year 2018 by 18.87 per cent. Nevertheless, the quantity of export of tea had decreased by 2.21 per cent.
(LI)