Business View Magazine Jan-Feb 2019

50 A FRESH FOCUS Though Cha Time originally became famous for its innovative bubble tea recipes, the brand is now attempting to redefine the brand’s im- age into the “home of freshly brewed iced tea”. Globally, shareholders were interested in the idea of giving the brand more of a Western ap- peal without betraying its roots or delving too far away from the original goals. By focusing on the freshness of the ingredients, such as the tea which is brewed at least every four hours, the Cha Time team believes that the brand will ap- peal to a wider Western audience. Carlos Antonius, General Manager, and Ben Hemphill, National Franchise Manager, ex- plained more about this process: “The key part of the brief is that the shareholders globally were looking at how Cha Time, which trades in the bubble tea category, could step out of that space and develop a brand that had more West- ern appeal […] So we embarked on this brand review nine months ago and we have now gone to market with this new positioning for the Cha Time brand” For anyone following Australian drink trends, this should not be surprising at all. Research has