The brand dropped the Tea Folk last summer and replaced them with health-focused ads with a voiceover supplied by 'Trainspotting' and 'Star Wars' star Ewan MacGregor.
The new 拢15m campaign, which launched in February, featured MacGregor reading a poem in a series of feel-good spots designed to inspire consumers to live life to the full. The Tetley slogan "Tetley make tea bags make tea" was also replaced in favour of a new slogan "You are the champions, and this is your cup".
In one spot, a Royal Guard breaks his statue-like position to help a young girl who trips and falls in front of him. In another spot, a doting father excels himself at his daughter's school sports day and, in the final TV spot, a woman proposes to her partner instead of waiting to be asked.
Tetley has seen its sales fall 14% to 拢7.8m in May compared with rival brand PG Tips, which saw sales soar 35%.
Tetley has disputed the figures and said its data showed sales had risen by 7.2% year on year between March and June.
Nigel Holland, commercial director for Tetley, said: "It's the nation's favourite drink -- we drink twice as much tea as coffee -- and with this new campaign, we are committed to standing up for that."
At the launch of the campaign, Holland said: "Tea has been fronted by animation and animals for years, but we feel the market is crying out for some passion and a new lease of life. The new campaign is all about Tetley Tea making people live life to the full and proclaiming the health benefits."
Tetley competitor PG Tips, which claims to be number one in a market worth 拢554m a year, has also put its brand mascots, the PG Chimps, on the back burner in favour of the Aardman-created T-Birds.
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