PG Tips spent decades building one of Britain’s most distinctive brands. The money men took over and showed just how little they understand brand building. Yorkshire Tea must be loving it, writes Ian Maskell, Founder, P E C O R I N O, and former VP Global Marketing, Unilever.

There is something wonderfully British about a knitted Monkey becoming the embodiment of everything wrong with marketing in 2026. Four years after Unilever sold its tea business to private equity, Yorkshire Tea has stolen its crown, PG sales are declining and another relaunch is underway. What’s gone wrong for Britain's most famous tea brand?

Between 1956 & 1994, PG Tips created more than 100 chimpanzee ads, including the legendary ‘piano mover’, some of the most recognisable ads in British history. The chimps were rightly retired as attitudes changed. In 2007, PG Tips adopted Monkey, (a knitted puppet), alongside Johnny Vegas. Different character, same winning formula: distinctive humour, familiarity and instant recognition.

Monkey was a masterstroke, PG’s updated distinctive brand asset. Then, after 2016, Monkey disappeared. In May 2024, PG Tips unveiled Rock Solid, a sparkling new TVC directed by Sir Steve McQueen, starring Ashley Walters - music by Ezra Collective. It's Not Just Tea. It's Progress. Very hip. Very contemporary. Very exciting for the agency and marketing team. But not a monkey in sight!

Does the average PG Tips consumer give a monkeys about Steve McQueen or Ezra Collective? They're buying teabags, not attending Cannes Lions. The campaign was part of a £12 million marketing investment. Eight months later, PG Tips changed agency and by May 2025, Monkey was back, alongside Emily Atack (The Inbetweeners and I'm a Celebrity). Another agency. Another campaign. Another strategy. But at least they got one thing right. Monkey!

Get rid of the Monkey? NEVER!

Hard to imagine a better illustration of marketing's destructive addiction to reinvention.

In 2021, Yorkshire Tea overtook PG Tips to become the UK's leading black tea brand. Since 2017, Yorkshire Tea has been demonstrating the power of consistency; the Where Everything's Done Proper platform has delivered… err… properly! Sean Bean giving an induction speech. Patrick Stewart (RIP) a leaving speech. Sarah Lancashire investigating a missing biscuit. Different celebs. Different jokes. One brand idea. Celebrities reinforce the brand without becoming the brand. Yorkshire Tea retained its distinctiveness, Yorkshire provenance and uncompromising proposition. PG Tips flip-flopped on Monkey while Yorkshire Tea made ‘Proper’ impossible to forget. 

Brands grow primarily through penetration, reaching more category buyers, especially light buyers. Mental availability, being remembered, and physical availability, being easy to find, are fundamental. Distinctive assets, consistent narrative, broad reach and strong distribution are critical.

But marketers get bored long before their consumers. New management. New agency. New positioning. Another expensive campaign. Exciting for everyone involved, except consumers. Years of memory structures thrown out with yesterday's PowerPoint.

When private equity moves in, the promise is greater agility, sharper focus and improved financial performance. Everything needs a measurable return, preferably before the next board meeting. Building memories for tomorrow is tricky to put on a spreadsheet. Why invest millions in tomorrow's sales when performance marketing delivers conversion today? Spend money, generate clicks, report ROI. Happy CFO. Do clicks create demand or simply harvest demand created by a strong brand?

Thirty years at Mars and Unilever taught me how strong brands, consistent investment and sophisticated FMCG capabilities create competitive advantage. Unilever wasn't perfect and PG Tips' problems predated the private equity sale. But decades of consumer understanding, distribution expertise and institutional memory aren't easily replaced by an agile PowerPoint.

PG Tips' lavish Rock Solid folly shows that brand-building investment alone isn't enough. It must be sustained.

PG Tips is in good company. John Lewis ditched Never Knowingly Undersold, only to bring it back. Jaguar threw out decades of brand heritage for a trendy new identity, generating headlines, ridicule and backlash. Tropicana removed its iconic orange-with-a-straw image in January 2009, watched sales plunge 20%, and announced its return in February. Different brands, same spectacular own goal: throwing away what consumers recognise because someone in the boardroom fancies a change.

Distinctive brand assets take decades to build and can be undermined overnight. Recovery takes years, if ever.

Make great tea. Easy to buy. Impossible to forget. And, please, leave the bloody Monkey alone!