PG Tips Sends Monkey Up The Shard for Red Nose Day
PG Tips launched Monkey's Monumental Mission in the United Kingdom in early 2015, sending an animatronic version of its iconic brand mascot up The Shard — then Europe's tallest building — to raise money for Comic Relief's Red Nose Day through a 12-week, 360-degree campaign built around specially marked retail packs.
The campaign began in January 2015 with the release of limited-edition Red Nose Day packs, with PG Tips donating 8 pence from every specially marked pack to Comic Relief, as reported by Campaign magazine. The physical centrepiece arrived on February 23, 2015, when an animatronic PG Tips Monkey completed the climb of The Shard in London, a feat documented on film and distributed across television, digital, outdoor, and radio channels. This was PG Tips' first Comic Relief partnership, marking a significant departure from the brand's usual character-led advertising into the territory of cause-driven experiential marketing. PG Tips and Persil jointly set a target of raising one million pounds for Comic Relief through their combined campaign activity, according to Campaign magazine. The resulting content — equal parts charity spectacle and brand entertainment — invited fans across the United Kingdom to support Monkey's heroics simply by purchasing participating products, creating a direct and emotionally legible link between consumer behaviour and charitable outcome. The campaign was created by agency Hey Human, with the animatronic Monkey designed by Millennium FX and the stunt documented by Unit 9, as noted by campaignlive.com. Monkey's Monumental Mission earned a Clapboard Score of 72 out of 100, reflecting strong creative ambition and effective integration of brand, cause, and spectacle within a single cohesive platform.
PG Tips held 25% UK value share in 2015, equivalent to approximately 162 million pounds, down from 168 million pounds the previous year, according to The Grocer. That decline did not occur in isolation. The broader UK retail tea market contracted from approximately 699 million pounds in 2010 to around 654 million pounds in 2015, with total volume falling from 97 million kilograms to 76 million kilograms over the same period, also per The Grocer. Black tea — the category PG Tips dominates — recorded a further decline of around one percent in 2015, while green, fruit, herbal, and speciality teas continued to grow, signalling a structural shift in British drinking habits that no promotional activity could fully reverse.
Against that backdrop, Monkey's Monumental Mission served a dual strategic purpose. First, it anchored PG Tips emotionally at a moment of national cultural participation — Red Nose Day commands broad, cross-demographic attention in the United Kingdom — without requiring the brand to compete purely on price or product claims. Second, it deployed the Monkey character, one of the most recognisable brand mascots in British advertising, in a context that refreshed his relevance without abandoning the warmth and humour that have defined him. Tetley, PG Tips' closest rival, held approximately 17% UK value share at the time, according to The Grocer, while Twinings competed strongly in the growing premium and speciality segments, as noted by Marketing Week. By aligning with Comic Relief rather than mounting a conventional product campaign, Hey Human gave PG Tips a reason for consumers to engage that neither Tetley nor Twinings was occupying at that moment. The 8-pence-per-pack mechanic also gave the retail environment a role to play, transforming a standard shelf presence into a point of charitable activation across the United Kingdom.
Monkey's Monumental Mission rested on a single audacious image: a beloved animatronic character scaling the glass facade of The Shard, then the tallest building in Europe, in front of the London skyline. The creative logic was clean — every Red Nose Day, celebrities take on daunting physical challenges to raise money, and Hey Human simply transplanted that established cultural grammar onto a brand mascot, letting Monkey embody the spirit of the event rather than merely sponsor it. Creative direction on the campaign was led by Bo Hellberg at Hey Human, with the animatronic Monkey constructed by Millennium FX, the production company known for its work in film and television prosthetics and character effects, as documented by campaignlive.com. The physical stunt on February 23, 2015 was captured and produced by Unit 9, whose documentation provided the campaign's hero film content, according to Archive Unit9.
The resulting film leaned into comedy as much as spectacle, presenting Monkey's climb with the same mixture of bravery and self-aware absurdity that has characterised PG Tips advertising for decades. That tonal consistency was deliberate. Hey Human understood that the Monkey character's equity in the United Kingdom depends on a specific register — warmhearted, slightly bumbling, always entertaining — and the production ensured the stunt footage preserved that register even as it placed the character in an unfamiliar physical context. The 360-degree activation extended the creative idea across television, digital, outdoor, radio, and retail, with the specially marked Red Nose Day packs functioning as both a fundraising mechanic and a media channel in their own right. Celebrity-led content added further reach, mirroring the broader Comic Relief campaign structure and ensuring that Monkey's Monumental Mission felt like a genuine participant in Red Nose Day rather than an opportunistic brand attachment.
No independently verified performance data for Monkey's Monumental Mission — including total funds raised, pack sales uplift, or media reach figures — is publicly available at the campaign level. What the public record does confirm is that PG Tips and Persil jointly targeted raising one million pounds for Comic Relief through their combined 2015 Red Nose Day activity, as reported by Campaign magazine, and that PG Tips donated 8 pence per specially marked pack sold in the United Kingdom to Comic Relief, also per Campaign magazine. The scale of that ambition, relative to PG Tips' then-market value share of approximately 162 million pounds according to The Grocer, indicates that the fundraising goal required meaningful retail participation across the campaign's 12-week window.
Structurally, the campaign demonstrated considerable effectiveness in three measurable-by-proxy dimensions. The stunt generated national press coverage around the February 23 climb, extending earned media reach beyond paid placements. The Red Nose Day packs created a retail activation that sustained consumer engagement across the full 12-week duration, long after the stunt itself concluded. And the campaign's creative ambition was formally recognised: HeyHuman won The Drum Dream Award for Integrated FMCG Campaign in 2015 for Monkey's Monumental Mission, as reported by The Drum. That award, judged by industry peers, is an externally verifiable indicator of campaign quality and integration. For a brand navigating a declining category in the United Kingdom, the ability to generate cultural participation, sustained retail engagement, and trade-press recognition from a single platform represents a genuinely efficient deployment of creative resources — and it explains the campaign's Clapboard Score of 72 out of 100.
Monkey's Monumental Mission was a 12-week UK campaign by Hey Human for PG Tips, launched in January 2015 for Comic Relief's Red Nose Day. An animatronic Monkey climbed The Shard on February 23, 2015, with PG Tips donating 8 pence per specially marked pack to Comic Relief, as reported by Campaign magazine.
Millennium FX constructed the animatronic PG Tips Monkey used in the Shard climb, according to campaignlive.com. The stunt was documented on film by Unit 9, and creative direction was led by Bo Hellberg at Hey Human, the agency responsible for the full 360-degree campaign in the United Kingdom.
HeyHuman won The Drum Dream Award for Integrated FMCG Campaign in 2015 for Monkey's Monumental Mission, as reported by The Drum. The award recognised the campaign's integration across television, digital, outdoor, radio, experiential, and retail channels throughout the United Kingdom.
PG Tips donated 8 pence per specially marked Red Nose Day pack to Comic Relief, according to Campaign magazine. PG Tips and Persil jointly targeted raising one million pounds for Comic Relief through their combined 2015 activities. This was PG Tips' first Comic Relief partnership, as documented by campaignlive.com.
PG Tips held 25% UK value share, worth approximately 162 million pounds in 2015, according to The Grocer. The broader UK retail tea market had contracted significantly since 2010, with black tea declining while green and speciality teas grew, creating competitive pressure on established brands including PG Tips and Tetley.
The Shard was Europe's tallest building at the time of the stunt in February 2015, making it an immediately legible symbol of monumental challenge. Hey Human selected it to mirror the Red Nose Day tradition of celebrities undertaking daunting physical feats, anchoring Monkey's climb within a culturally familiar fundraising framework.
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