Emphasizing the idea of paring down to bare essentials, Nestlé Water used a tiny-house activation to launch a line of Nestea drinks. The event supported the company’s new “less is more” slogan behind a group of reformulated teas that have been stripped of artificial ingredients.
Held Wednesday in Herald Square Park, directly across the street from the flagship location of Macy’s, the event was expected to draw more than 10,000 passersby but attracted an additional 2,000 visitors thanks to free tea on the city’s hottest day of the year to date, according to Carly Seiler Bovell, director of Eventage, which produced the activation.
The tiny house included brand messaging such as Nestea’s logo on the doors and welcome mat, along with paintings of the tea-purveyor’s bottles. The activation also included carts that held iced-tea bottles, large Adirondack chairs, and a topiary rendering of the Nestea name. It was staffed by a dozen brand ambassadors and featured an appearance by actress Anna Camp, whom Karen Ress, vice president and general manager of tea brands for Nestlé Waters, described as having a “less is more” lifestyle.
To design the house, Nestlé enlisted the help of personalities behind the lifestyle blogs Inspired By Charm, Southern Bite, and Hapa Time, which all “exemplify the message of living a simpler life,” according to Ress. Best known for her role in the movie Pitch Perfect, Camp “grew up in Georgia and drank iced tea on the porch with her mother and grandmother,” Ress said.
The tiny-house activation was the first creation of its kind for Nestea, and “having this event in the spring ties into the idea of freshness and a new beginning,” said Ress.
The activation will head to Boston and Chicago in the coming months.
