Goodbye Bluebird - why we changed our name!
If you haven't been here for a while or are new, then you might not know what we are talking about. People now know us as Bird & Blend Tea Co. but in another life (not too long ago) we were called Bluebird Tea Co.
So, we thought we'd jump on here to address it and answer any questions you may have!
Why Did We Change Our Name...
Say whaat!? But whhhy!?
The short of it is that we have been challenged for the trademark ‘BLUEBIRD’ by a large restaurant company.
We promised you the backstory, here it is…(Are you sat comfy? Do you have a good cuppa?!)
Almost a year ago we were challenged by a big company who use part of our name in one of their restaurants. They own the trademark across a range of classes including the one covering dry packs of tea. Which we did know, but it turns out some legal advice we were given at the very start of our journey wasn’t as good as it should have been. They do legally own the word ‘BLUEBIRD’ and they made a case for customer confusion between our two brands.
Some of you will be reading this outraged, others will be confused and some calmer folk might be thinking ‘well if that’s the law, it’s the law’ … trust us we have been through all the major stages of grief since then… anger, denial, sadness.
To us, Bird & Blend was never just a name. It wasn’t created by a trendy marketing agency, it wasn’t about where we were based or our surnames, it wasn’t even anything to do with tea. Our name was a representation and a reminder of our passion and commitment to bring happiness, positivity and freedom into the world and the people we touched… however small that impact maybe, even if it is just sharing a good old cup of tea with someone to make them smile!
We don’t want you to think we gave up without a fight. We spent a big chunk of time and resources trying to fight to keep our name. We tried a lot of options (including offering to become their tea supplier)
You will know by now that we have a very pragmatic approach to business and the bottom line is that we also don’t want there to be any confusion between our brand and another, especially as we grow further.
We also recognise that we created our original brand back in the early days when it was just Mike and I, working from a back bedroom (In fact we didn’t even realise we were creating a brand… we just had a great name, drew a few things and stuck them up on a website!) we had no idea what was ahead, how passionate and loyal our community would become, how our culture and identity would be evolved by you lot just as much as us.
We are now nearly 6 years down the line we’ve realised that some of the most important elements of our brand ethos and culture are not represented as strongly as they could be in our branding… so comes the opportunity. To refresh, to rethink, to re-mix and to re-imagine! Just what we love doing best!
So in true BB style our optimism, creativity and innovative spirit has prevailed and we spent months planning and being incredibly excited about the opportunity a rebrand would bring us. We have worked with our customers and our team to really bring together what is special to us, keeping some of the old but bringing in a bit of new.
My favourite is our new hand-drawn bird logo which has an artist palette tail wing to represent our colourful and creative approach to tea! Mike’s is the use of ‘&’ in our name to represent our blend speciality of mixing ingredients as well as our aim to bring people together into our CommuniTEA.
We know nobody likes change, (although we did convince you all to try Rhubarb in your tea!), but don’t worry our same fabulous tea blends & epic customer service won't be going anywhere!
Before we sign off, a massive personal thank you for your support so far - we know you love BB just as much as we do and will welcome our new name with open (tea-filled) arms! If you have questions or worries, or just fancy a chat please do pop us an email or a call anytime!
Love & tea,
Krisi, Mike & Team BB x
Shop our best sellers:
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Black Tea
From: $5.70
To: $50.00
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Green Tea
From: $4.60
To: $76.50
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Fruit Infusion
From: $4.60
To: $62.40
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Green Tea
From: $7.10
To: $57.20
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Black Tea
From: $4.60
To: $63.10
