PETea Revamp: Honest Gets a Custom Look, Unifies Tea & Ade Lines

With a launch date set for mid-January, Honest Tea has unveiled a new look for its PET line, which has been redesigned and updated in an effort to gain broader appeal among mainstream consumers. Now packaged in a custom-molded 16.9 oz. plastic bottle, the teas feature revamped labels intended to give greater emphasis to its organic and “just a tad sweet” descriptors. The update also unifies the brand’s tea and “Honest-Ade” products into a single line, the latter now reformulated and positioned as herbal teas.

The changes to its PET line are part of Honest Tea’s evolved branding initiative, which the company has introduced in phases, beginning with the April launch of its “Summer Refreshers” multi-serve line; the products were the first to feature Honest’s new logo. In September, Honest rolled out new labels for its glass line with imagery designed “to bring to life the images and inspiration behind each tea variety,” according to the company.

Honest Tea New PET (2)

It took approximately one year for Honest Tea, a largely independent operating unit of the Coca-Cola Co., to develop the new look for its PET line, according to Dan Forman, Honest’s Director of PR & Digital Media. The redesign was led by Honest’s in-house creative team in collaboration with Beardwood & Co., a New York-based creative agency.

Though the size of the package remains the same, the bottle stands taller than the previous version and now employs a grip-like body and a base that is embossed with the phrase “Refreshingly Honest Since 1998.” In a sell sheet promoting the redesign, Honest notes that “the taller, sleeker” bottle is “2x preferred by consumers to our smaller bottle,” based on the results of a Coke-funded packaging study.

As for the label updates, Honest’s logo and iconic “T” image are now twice featured as a way to maintain visual identity from different angles (particularly on store shelves, when bottles are not always facing front). Honest Tea also calls out its organic formulation twice on the label and gave its trademarked “Just a Tad Sweet” phrase higher placement on the package as a way to “emphasize expectations for consumers,” Forman said.

By bringing the Ade line under its tea umbrella, Honest Tea will be able to offer a clearer and more unified line that in the past. Forman described confusion among some consumers regarding the Honest Ade products and whether they are formulated with tea (the answer is no). To address these concerns — and allow the brand to encompass a cohesive shelf set — the company reimagined the drinks as herbal teas, infusing them with hibiscus, lemon balm and rosehips for its Pomegranate Blue Orange Mango and Cranberry Lemon varieties, respectively.

Along with the new package comes a couple of formulation updates for Honest’s Half & Half and Peach Tea products. Half & Half, a tea and lemonade blend, now comes with a touch of stevia in the beverage, while maintaining its 100 calorie per bottle count. Meanwhile, the Peach Tea has been enhanced with “peachier” flavor and a slightly brighter look, according to Forman.