Dilmah, my personal ethos and my commitment to marketing a single origin Ceylon tea

(Excerpted from the Merrill J. Fernando autobiography)

Decades ago, before supermarket chains marketing international brands overwhelmed the consumers’ perception of quality, with marketing hyperbole surrounding mediocre products, it was the neighbourhood grocer running his own shop, who personally wrapped your goods and handed them over the counter. There was meaningful conversation between the two and the transaction implied immediate accountability of the supplier to the consumer.

Today that relationship has been replaced by the faceless and voiceless supermarket retailer, who supports a convenience lifestyle, but leaves no space for direct accountability for product quality.

Most of the currently popular global brands were first launched and developed by small, single entrepreneurs, with a passion for delivering a product with genuine value to the customer. Many of them led small- or medium-sized family companies, such as mine, which competed with each other on product quality, and not by price discounting. These were companies which had been in business for generations and, over time, nurtured their brands with great care and passion.

In time, many such brands, seduced by attractive take-over offers, sold out to massive corporate interests, which marketed the brands on their old, established value propositions, but debased the product in order to lower costs. That is the point at which a product with an intrinsic composite value of individuality and authenticity, becomes a boring, anonymous commodity, to be traded at the mass market label owners’ will.

The small- and medium-scale suppliers who concentrate on quality and the delivery of an authentic product to the consumer, at a commensurate price, were eventually forced out of business, in their inability to accept deep cost reductions whilst still maintaining product integrity. The concentration of the tea industry in the hands of multinationals, Global outreach, changed the priorities of the brands that they acquired from smaller companies.

The passion of the brand founder for authenticity and quality was replaced by the greed for profit, which often meant the debasement of quality. These altered priorities inevitably drove the new brand owners to progressively cheaper sources for tea, in the process sacrificing quality and stifling innovation. Consequently, what is ultimately delivered to the consumer is a commercially viable, low-quality product.

That is exactly what has happened to Ceylon Tea, in many parts of the world where it is still consumed; in the hands of the large multinational retailers, it has become commoditised. The ‘Pure Ceylon Tea’ label was first diminished to ‘Ceylon Blend,’ degraded further to `Ceylon Type,’ and eventually disappeared altogether. However, the customer, anesthetized to reality by the original value perception, and his judgment clouded by marketing make-believe and the hard-sell of attractively-wrapped fiction, continued to patronize the devalued product. Brand loyalty is one-sided. The multinational brand owner has no allegiance to the consumer or the product, but only to profit.

The massive consumption this system generated was followed by fierce competition for shelf space between different brands, leading to progressive lowering of quality by the packer, in order to manage production costs and to remain profitable. The power of multinational traders enabled them to dictate and manipulate the product price, whether it be tea or coffee. The core philosophy of big business is not to be better, but bigger and more profitable. It is an ugly culture in which there is no place for ethics, or the delivery of genuine value. It is an ethos which is certain to generate a race to the bottom, in which the winner is, inevitably, the least scrupulous.

‘Dilmah’ receives my personal approval

One factor which worked in my favour then, and continues to do so today, was that when I launched Dilmah, it would have been the first time that a brand founder cum brand owner was making personal visits to the countries of consumption to promote his product. With my style of direct, personal marketing, I reintroduced the concept of the producer’s personal accountability to the consumer. I spoke to the consumer and also listened to him. If the product is genuine, the consumer will ensure the success of the brand.

Perhaps fortunately, I had neither studied marketing as a subject, nor ever read a book on marketing. Therefore, I relied on my instinct and the intimate personal knowledge of overseas tea marketing that I had gathered in over four decades up to that time. Those two factors have rarely failed me and they did not fail me in Australia. I knew enough about my product to answer any question on it, unlike a marketing or sales representative, who may not have had comprehensive knowledge of the product or, most importantly, a genuine passion for what he was selling.

Unlike a paid salesman, I was able to tell the potential buyer confidently, that my product was the best and explain why it was so. I talked and lived tea and was not simply selling it. Equally important, there was my unshakable belief that God helps those who strive with diligence and integrity.

As a small, single entrepreneur from a small country, both with limited resources, fighting against multinationals with seemingly-limitless advertising budgets and deep outreach across continents, I gradually came to realize that I had a matchless advantage when it came to product promotion. The multinational was a huge, faceless entity, with no morality and no allegiance to anybody or anything,

except to profit. There was no accountability between the supplier, seller, product, and consumer. It represented a callous, commercial chain with dis-empowered links.

Dilmah, on the other hand, had an intimate brand image, a face, a real man to that face and, behind that man, a real family. The consumer was able to relate his morning cup of tea to a flesh and blood person. It was a unique concept of integrated connectivity, from beginning to end. Dilmah was the only tea brand which provided genuine ‘Garden to Cup’ answerability. In its totality, it spoke of association, authenticity, and accountability, which are perceptions of unquantifiable worth in any relationship, whether it be personal or commercial.

My Dilmah was a dream, dreamt by me as a young man in his early twenties, at the very beginning of his career, serving a colonial master in a field hitherto inaccessible to Ceylonese. It took almost four decades for that dream to reach reality and fruition. That long journey was signposted by hope and despair, success and failure, and active assistance and deliberate sabotage. Finally, my perseverance prevailed, supported by an enduring faith in the inherent goodness of Pure Ceylon Tea, in my ability as a tea-maker, and in my God.

The ‘Dilmah Single origin’ jouney, from the picker’s hands to the pack

As a consequence of my direct approach and acceptance of personal responsibility for my brand, the buyers became my close friends and took me into their hearts and their homes. I got to know their families and they got to know mine. They understood that my concern for the quality of the product and its acceptance by the consumer genuinely superseded the profit motive.

My Unique Selling Point was that what I presented was garden fresh, unblended, Pure Ceylon Tea and of a genuinely single, and singular, origin. It was packed where it was grown. I was not just a seller or a marketer, or a middleman, selling a product he had no link to, but the head of a close-knit family, which was selling its own creation. I was also a messenger on behalf of a peerless product.

Marketing strategies and styles need to evolve constantly, in order to keep abreast of changing consumer patterns and competition from other products, the latter exerting relentless pressure on the seller of any brand or product. Similarly, with the introduction of electronic mass media and social media platforms delivering instant knowledge globally, my company has also been compelled to frequently adjust its marketing strategies, in order to respond effectively to such daunting challenges.

However, irrespective of the intensity of the contest and the rewards at stake, Dilmah has not, and will not, compromise on its founding principle of quality and purity. As I have said repeatedly in this writing, that core concept is immutable. I cannot say it often enough. Tradition is our bedrock and sustainability, with authenticity our goal. I do not believe in quick fixes to any problem, whether in life or in the marketing of tea.

At the time I launched Dilmah, ‘Ethical Trade’ and ‘Fair Trade’ were not the common currency of the marketing of tea, as they are today. The strength of Dilmah was its commitment to quality and authenticity, which is declared in every pack, supported by the family philosophy behind the brand. In a world of large traders, Dilmah was a farmers’ tea brand, overriding the middleman and going directly to supermarkets the world over.

We did not try to replicate the successful strategies of our larger competitors. We developed our own business concepts, designs, and packaging, whilst our marketing platform clearly reflected our family values and aspirations. Those were our unique selling points, and, in the end, they made the difference.

Dilmah is possibly the one internationally-marketed tea brand which buys its product only from the country where it is grown, and that which is owned, packed, and marketed by the same country, all within one family, with the revenue flowing back to the country of origin. The surplus from that trade also stays in the country of origin. It is that surplus which enables the Dilmah contribution to social justice, environmental conservation, and other worthy causes that benefit the community.

In my mind that is an enterprise model without peer. Well before the ‘Ethical Trade’ and ‘Fair Trade’ labels entered the formal marketing lexicon of the local and international tea trade, as either desirable attributes or mandatory requirements, Dilmah was already voluntarily compliant.

If there is a lesson in Dilmah, it is a very simple one. I followed a dream relentlessly, with passion and integrity, and shared it with my consumers. They listened to me because I was an ordinary man whom they could identify with, telling a story with a simple message that they could understand and believe in. My story never changed because it was a simple truth. I was successful in the delivery of that

message because I had total confidence in myself, a comprehensive knowledge of my product, and complete faith in divine guidance. The timely and happy confluence of those unvarnished verities invested the Dilmah story with the enduring resonance of sustainability and credibility, which are its greatest strengths.