Once there was a tea company that worked with a much-loved entertainer to help make itself relevant and famous.
Together they made some much-loved commercials, the rate of recall for the brand quickly rose and its tea was being tasted. Celebrities on the big TV shows were even dunking the name of the tea company into their opinion-forming conversations.
Doubtless the tea company would go on and use this partnership to create new consumer experiences with a chain of contemporary teashops, elevate its commercials to a popular TV series and so redefine tea marketing for a generation. But enough about what Twinings might have achieved with Stephen Fry.
Yorkshire Tea has started down the same path with the entertainer John Shuttleworth, and I think it will be a profitable partnership.
Although this is not my favourite ad in the series, I still warm to Yorkshire Tea. Shuttleworth sits on top of a big box of lovely tea bags and sings his simple song Tea Time is Me Time like a post-modern George Formby in a chocolate-leather car coat. 'They're using all the latest video techniques,' he says. It is ironic, but not as entertaining as the sight of our brilliantined hero in his chaotic Yorkshire shed with his tea on a shelf next to the linseed oil and the jam jar full of thumb tacks.
Incidentally I used to work with a nice man from Heckmondwike, the Balham of West Yorkshire. He shared the same snappy dress sense as Shuttleworth and commuted between Leeds and Covent Garden daily. He survived on 26 mugs of tea a day and introduced me to Shuttleworth's organ sound as early as 1995.
Now, courtesy of Shuttleworth and his crazy organ, this forgotten tea brand is back on people's lips again. At a time when people are going back to basics, the promise of a good old-fashioned cup of tea is timely and refreshing. The real question is whether Yorkshire Tea will pursue the partner-ship with Shuttleworth.
With good writing and imaginative use of new media, Yorkshire Tea could take tea marketing to the next level. Does Shuttleworth tweet for Yorkshire? He should. Would he be available to cut the ribbon at the opening of the fashionably retro Yorkshire Tea Shop in Heathrow's Terminal 5 or in the Olympic Village? Aye, course he bloody well would.