MxMIndia

Tag: PepsiCo

  • Spurred by brand activation spends, such non-advertising spends, called below-the-line (BTL), are gaining share over advertising spends at several leading consumer companies

    HUL, LG etc look beyond regular advtg

    By Bhanu Pande & Ratna Bhushan

     

    PepsiCo is organising seven-a-side soccer tournaments in neighbourhoods, LG is showcasing its durables in residential complexes, Cadbury is standing outside super markets with its cookies, Hindustan Unilever is standing with a shampoo to assess the state of your scalp… These are some of the biggest companies, with hefty advertising budgets. Yet, to market their wares, they are increasingly looking beyond conventional, passive advertising and spending more on marketing activities where the connect with the target consumer is active and direct.

     

    In marketing lingo, such on-the-ground events and promotions are called ‘brand activation’, and they generally form the largest chunk of a company’s non-advertising activities. Spurred by brand activation spends, such non-advertising spends, called below-the-line (BTL), are gaining share over advertising spends at several leading consumer companies.

     

    According to LK Gupta of LG Electronics, 60 per cent of the company’s marketing

    budget is going towards BTL activities, against 35-40 per cent three years ago. “With increasing choices, the consumer has become more discerning,” said Mr Gupta, vice president-marketing. “Therefore, ground activations are gaining traction due to the added impact they give beyond the media clutter.”

     

    Elsewhere, Homi Battiwalla, category director, PepsiCo India, labels the increase in his company’s BTL spends as “significant”. “Today, consumers have started saying, ‘show me something real’,” he added. In April, in its advertising, PepsiCo India switched from cricket to soccer, and launched a campaign, ‘change the game’.

     

    Alongside, it hit neighbourhoods with ‘T-20 Football’ – a seven-a-side, 20-minute soccer tourney. “We realised plain advertising wasn’t enough,” said Mr Battiwalla. “We wanted to build the idea, and create an experiential engagement that is grassroots with our target audience.”

     

    All this is translating into more business for firms like New Delhi-based Candid Marketing, which helps companies with their brand-activation strategies. Its managing director Atul S Nath says its business is growing 25 per cent a year. “Clients are questioning the delivery from plain advertising,” he said. “Delivery from brand activation is almost immediate, though the latter has its limitations.”

     

    Mr Nath predicts that, in the next five years, the split between BTL and ATL (above-the-line, or advertising) spends will be equal. Currently, companies spend more on mass-media advertising than on events and promotions. He, however, feels, advertising budgets will not fall in absolute terms, but more of the incremental allocation will be to BTL activities. “Overall spends on BTL will significantly rise as people begin to see its impact,” he said.

     

    Mr Gupta of LG agrees, and attributes it partly to the rise of online marketing and social media, which conveys details of a product quicker than conventional advertising. “The influencing touch points are shifting,” he said. “The customer comes armed with his own research. So, conversion with demo and explanation has become an area of great focus.”

     

    It’s also the current tight business environment, said brand consultant Harish Bijoor, who sees advertising symbolising ‘theme’ and BTL representing ‘sales’. In a tough market, cash flows are an imperative. “So, they are putting their big bucks on BTL, and money is certainly moving from theme to scheme,” he said.

     

    Mayank Shah of Parle Products says the idea is to engage with the consumer despite the higher costs. “In case of traditional advertising on television or print, cost per contact is very low,” said Mr Shah, group product manager. “BTL activation is costlier, but it’s the quality of engagement with the consumer that makes a lot of sense. He feels, it is very important to generate trials in food products, which is the company’s main product category. “Sometimes it’s necessary to make consumer sample your products,” said Mr Shah. “And where there’s a big rural and semi-urban opportunity, we need to go BTL.

     

    Dabur India too has been relying heavily on BTL activities in tier-II and tier-III towns. “With rural consumers increasingly moving towards branded products, just leveraging mainstream media is not enough to connect with them,” said George Angelo, executive director-sales, Dabur.

     

    The company has the Dabur Amla ‘banke dikhao rani pratiyogita’, a rural beauty and talent hunt where rural women are groomed by trained beauticians. Another of its recent BTL activity was the Dabur Gulabari Miss Rose glow contest – a regional model hunt from state capitals, with the eventual winner receiving a wildcard to the Femina Miss India contest. “A BTL initiative involving Vanya Mishra (a wildcard who was one of the winners at the Miss India contest) resulted in Dabur Gulabari reporting its highest ever monthly sales in April,” said Mr Angelo.

     

    Source: The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

     

  • Taproot's co-founders Dias and Santosh Padhi are clearly testing the market and checking out valuations, said an agency insider. But this may not tantamount to an immediate sale

    Global ad biggies like Omnicom, Publicis & Dentsu in hectic parleys to buy Taproot

    By Neha Dewan & Ravi Balakrishnan

     

    In 2011, when Taproot snatched two big-ticket assignments, PepsiCo and Airtel – both JWT clients – the joke was that JWTstood for Just Went to Taproot.

     

    Now JWT may just have to be shuffled around to become TJW – or Taproot Just Went – now that a clutch of global ad networks are in hectic parleys with the founders of the five-year-old independent Indian agency. Those in the fray, said a person familiar with the negotiations, include the Omnicom group, Publicis and Dentsu.

     

    Agnello Dias, chairman and co-founder, Taproot India, said: “There are three or four groups talking to us and Dentsu is one of them. It doesn’t have any head start and we are no closer to signing a dotted line (with Dentsu than with any other network).”

     

    A Dentsu spokesperson was unavailable for comment. Nakul Chopra, CEO, Publicis South Asia, said: “We don’t comment on acquisitions of any nature.”

     

    Taproot’s co-founders Dias and Santosh Padhi are clearly testing the market and checking out valuations, said an agency insider. But this may not tantamount to an immediate sale.

     

    “The global groups are speaking not just to Taproot but also to other independent agencies like Creativeland Asia. We are open to talking to anybody but at the end of the day it may not be Dentsu, Omnicom or anybody. We would just like to get an idea of how much we are worth and valued at,” is how the insider who requested anonymity put it.

     

    The agency, which had a slow beginning in 2007, eventually moved on to big clients. Campaigns such as ‘Har Ek Friend Zaroori Hota Hai’ (HFZ) and ‘Change the Game’ for Pepsi got popular acclaim as well as industry  accolades with HFZ winning seven medals at Goafest this year.

     

    At Goafest, considered the premier local ad festival in India, Taproot was runner-up to Ogilvy India, clinching 34 metals and beating top agencies such as Leo Burnett, DDB Mudra, Grey and JWT. Besides this, the agency had won the Grand Effie award last year for the ‘Change the Game’ campaign.

     

    In its fifth year, the agency runs a tight ship with 35 people on board. A senior official at a leading ad agency says that Taproot has had to turn down a lot of projects in the past year.

     

    “Funding via a sale of equity will help them increase their capabilities,” he said. For now though, a more interesting game is afoot with Dias and Padhi playing their cards very close to their chest.

     

    Source: The Economic Times
    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

     

  • The site itself has been trying to tell advertisers that if they want scale, they'll have to shell out the hard cash for offerings like "sponsored stories", not to be confused with "sponsored ads"

    Can Facebook, the marketer’s online best friend ever become its ace salesman?

    By Delshad Irani & Ravi Balakrishnan

     

    In 2009, Facebook terminated the ‘Whopper Sacrifice’, Burger King’s social experiment cum marketing activation. Created by Crispin Porter Bogusky, the campaign’s premise was the more ties you sever the closer you get to your BK Whopper. The application as it turned out was a whopping success.

     

    Within a week 200,000 ‘friends’ were virtually burned out of existence from various lists. Facebook couldn’t handle the loss of those hard-earned friendships. Burger King, on the other hand, proved the point it set out to make – Americans sure do love their burgers. That same year, Swedish furniture giant Ikea spent practically nothing to create a campaign to promote its newest store.

     

    The agency Forsman & Bodenfors created a new Facebook account for the manager at the store in the city of Malmo and posted catalogue pictures of furnished rooms.

     

    Users could win furniture and other items in the photos if they beat their friends to the punch. All they needed to do was tag the pieces with their names first. Needless to say the prospect of first-to-tag-wins drove Facebookians crazy. The campaign was hassle-free, cheap and effective, just like the Scandinavian furniture it was advertising.

     

    Fast-forward to a few weeks ago. General Motors, the world’s fourth-largest advertiser and spender of $3.9 billion globally on advertising in 2010, haunted by questions related to effectiveness and ROI, pulled out its pretty penny, all $10 million of it, from Facebook’s paid-ad kitty just days before the social network’s stock went public.

     

    In addition to that sum, the automaker spends a reported $30 million on content creation for social media. These examples make Baccarat-crystal clear what we know already – you don’t have to pay big to make an impact via social media.

     

    In India, most marketers love talking about the worth of a campaign by the number of fans, or likes received on the most recent post. But even they are starting to ask a tricky question: what’s the real worth of their campaigns on Facebook? Worth more than a burger, eh?

     

    The site itself has been trying to tell advertisers that no longer will mere presence and innovative social media campaigns cut it. If they want scale, they’ll have to shell out the hard cash for offerings like “sponsored stories”, not to be confused with “sponsored ads”.

     

    For instance, products like Reach Generator guarantee that posts by a brand stand to be seen by 75 per cent of its fans every month or an estimated 50 per cent every week. Non users of the tool will have to settle for an average of only 16 per cent of fans viewing posts on a weekly basis. Not everyone’s buying though, believing that compelling content will win any day of the week.

     

    Anuradha Aggarwal, senior VP, brand communication and insights, Vodafone India said: “Since having high engagement scores is our goal, we focus on creating content on our Facebook page rather than on advertising. We focus on creating posts and apps to enable our 3.2 million fans to create conversations and experiences around the brand.”

     

    PepsiCo’s approach is to use a combination of both, posts/promotions on brand pages and display advertising. One of the cola maker’s prominent campaigns on the site was ‘Meet Messi in Miami’ where fans had to complete a series of tasks to win a chance to meet The Atomic Flea.

     

    During the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, Pepsi launched an online progamme as part of the ‘Change the Game’ campaign where fans could win a dream trip across the country for all India matches. The latter initiative was listed as one of the 19 best campaigns in the world by Facebook on their success stories blog, the only Indian effort to feature on the page.

     

    According to Homi Battiwalla, category director – colas, hydration and mango based beverages, PepsiCo India, it is too early to give a conclusive opinion on new advertising properties like sponsored stories and other offers. So the bottom line when it comes to the marketing on the social network is the game hasn’t quite changed. “The primary focus remains on organic content as we believe it results in better consumer connect,” said Mr Battiwalla.

     

    For automakers like Mahindra & Mahindra, Facebook is good for what it was born to do in the first place. Well, that and to spy on “old acquaintances”. According to Vivek Nayer, senior VP, marketing, automotive division, Mahindra & Mahindra: “Rather than looking at Facebook for advertising reach, we’ve leveraged it for what the platform is inherently good at; building communities. Today at 5 million, we are the largest automotive community on Facebook in India”

     

    In the case of Unilever, the company moved from almost accidentally stumbling on the power of the site – after noting a lot of action on its first Cornetto Luv Reels page long after the promotion was over – to it being a key pillar to the launch of Fruttare, its new range for the summer. Sapan Sharma, general manager – ice creams, Hindustan Unilever, said: “There’s an advertiser login where you get all the details. In the first 10 days of launch, 1.2 lakh fans signed up and there were 1.2 to 1.5 lakh conversations.”

     

    Arch-rival P&G is not lagging either. According to a company spokesperson: “In just less than two months, we have over 690,000 fans for our Thank You, Mom campaign. This makes it the largest, most engaged-with Thank You, Mom community globally.” For the launch of Olay’s premium skin care range, Olay Regenerist, a Facebook waiting list was created, with both fashion journalists and consumers signing up for an exclusive trial on the site; in less than three weeks, over 11,400 people had registered.

     

    But as the eight-year-old Facebook enters a new league as a listed company, it needs to, and rather urgently, scale its revenues to sync with its audience. Minute, often ineffective, right-rail ads aren’t exactly a juicy bone to dangle in front of existing and potential advertisers; thus the introduction of premium ads and better placement.

     

    According to Siddhart Rao, CEO of digital agency Webchutney, the sweet spot between organic and paid promotion is the one that will yield maximum benefit to brands looking to extract value from social media marketing platforms like Facebook. “One cannot work without the other,” he said.

     

    S Yesudas, managing director – Indian subcontinent, Vizeum, said: “I do not think all marketers know what to expect from the medium. The hurry to be on to the bandwagon gets them there. The fact that Facebook offers free advertising inventory for brands to test the medium gets overlooked. In my opinion, the medium can be successfully used to build relationships with the consumers.

     

    Targeting can be done based on profile information, relationship status, interest or based on certain words in profiles or status messages. But the truth is the brand communication will always compete with the updates, videos, etc from friends.”

     

    Indeed, it’s complicated; the relationship between advertisers and Facebook. Especially when one moves from the fluffy world of engagement to hard sales. Many retailers in the West like JC Penney, Gamestop and Gap pulled the shutters on their stores on Facebook this February.

     

    Chhaya Balachandran Aiyer – founder – MD, BC Web Wise said: “Ironically Wade

    Gerten, the founder of 8thBridge – the flower store that was responsible for the coinage of the term F-commerce as it was the first to open shop on Facebook for 1,800 Flowers – has admitted that sales never really materialised for their first or other F-outlets, adding that F-commerce deserved an F. Given the fact that F-commerce (Facebook commerce) has failed in the west for retailers, it appears that Facebook would be an engagement vehicle. Peer recommendation and product ratings are not integrated. Should it launch a brand intelligence tool which can be used by consumers – which exposes peer comments and recommendations that can be accessed by the FB community – then the ball game will change.”

     

    Venkat Mallik – president, Tribal DDB & Rapp India says Facebook’s ability to deliver sales impact has been a bit of a mixed bag: “There need to be more strong case studies demonstrating the sales or brand impact from the use of Facebook led engagement.”

     

    However while Facebook may not itself be a platform to sell it can impact sales according to some of its satisfied customers. Unilever’s Mr Sharma for instance believes there’s a definite co-relation between high levels of engagement and products sold.

     

    According to Carlton D’Silva, chief creative officer, Hungama Digital Media, “Opinions of family and friends matter when making purchase decisions decisions and Facebook activity will provide a lot of data to consumers, which can be leveraged in places where they make these decisions, causing a significant, if not direct impact on purchase behaviour.”

     

    “GM is slashing its advertising budgets by $ 2 billion, of this only $10 million or 0.5 per cent was on Facebook. They have also announced they won’t advertise on Super Bowl, either. Further, what should be noted is that GM has 8 million fans already. I am sure that they are going to continue with the engagement plans for acquired fans. It would be foolish to assume anything beyond, or assume Facebook has failed for GM, it would be just that advertising further is currently not the best bet in its media plan,” said Ms Aiyer

     

    The users of Facebook both on the agency and the marketer side each have their wishlist ready.

     

    “The analytics are available at a lag of 7 to 15 days; I’m sure it can come earlier. I’m sure there will be a time when we can talk to people from a specific city or market,” said Mr Sharma

     

    “They are hugely data rich. If in some way they get to using some of the data millions of people put in their hands on a minute to minute basis, sky will be the limit for them.This will surely come in with resistance from the users, unless they persuade them. They have to walk this path very carefully,” added Mr Yesudas.

     

    Most brands have a clear agenda from marketing spends on social media platforms like Facebook – greater outreach among target audiences through personalised interaction and engagement, leading to higher impact on conversions and sales.

     

    “It’s a perfectly reasonable expectation from a social communication platform with 900 million members,” said Mr Rao of Webchutney, “but whether brands invest enough thought, time, resources and action to engage audiences meaningfully is another question.” And one helluva question it is. Because for every whopper of a Scandinavian success story, there are at least a dozen marketing campaigns that have fallen flat on their face. So, ask not what you can do on Facebook but what Facebook can do for you.

     

    Source: The Economic Times
    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

  • Many now prefer young, unknown faces in their campaigns

    Brands like Mountain Dew, Airtel, ITC and others bypass celebrities for their campaigns

    By Sagar Malviya & Ratna Bhushan

     

    PepsiCo ended its association with top Bollywood actor Salman Khan to promote its lemon drink Mountain Dew on Tuesday.

     

    Its decision to part ways with the hottest star of the moment may have surprised some observers, but the beverages maker is the latest in a growing club of marketers becoming selective about using celebrities in their campaigns.

     

    Top telecom services provider Bharti Airtel, mobile phone and durables maker Samsung, leading retailer Future Group, watch firm Titan and hotels-to-consumer goods firm ITC have all either ended associations with celebrities or are using them for lesser number of commercials. Many now prefer young, unknown faces in their campaigns.

     

    “In some categories, youth are taking the lead as celebrities are not an embodiment for segments, especially technology, etc,” said Santosh Desai, CEO at  Future Brands.

     

    Last week, Future Group launched a campaign for Big Bazaar’s apparel business without cricketer MS Dhoni or Bollywood actress Asin who have been the supermarket’s brand ambassadors till recently. “While Dhoni and Asin worked well for us in the last two years, we didn’t renew their contract as we thought having regular faces could connect with today’s generation,” said Parwan Sardah, chief marketing officer of Future Group.

     

    Youngsters of below 25 years account for more than 54 per cent of the consumer base in India. The retailer, which is negotiating several divestment and fund-raising deals to pare debt of almost Rs7,800 crore, said its high debt has nothing to do with ending celebrity associations and that the company has spent more than Rs30 crore on the new Big Bazaar campaign.

     

    Titan too has ended its deal with actress Genelia D’Souza for its Fastrack brand. “Genelia’s contract expired last month and we mutually decided not to renew it as after marriage, it would be difficult in relating to college going kids,” said Ronnie Talati, VP and business head of Fastrack & new brands at Titan.

     

    “Even in case of Virat Kohli, we are rethinking as he has been busy with his cricket schedules but still haven’t decided anything yet,” he said.

     

    Overall, however, celebrity endorsements are on the rise. But when it comes to attracting younger generation, many companies now prefer campaigns without their big-ticket ambassadors.

     

    A case in point is Samsung, which uses Aamir Khan in campaigns for its Hero series of mobile phones, but not for Galaxy series. “The usage of the celebrity depends on the key message and the creative route that is used for a particular product,” Samsung CMO Rahul Saighal said. “In the case of the youth-oriented Galaxy series, we are focusing on the use of smartphone and the need to get ‘smart’. So we are using young models.”

     

    ITC, which has Sachin Tendulkar as brand ambassador, uses the master batsman only for a few variants of Sunfeast biscuits, which has close to 20 sub-brands. “Naturally, different sub-brands require different types of advertising,” said VL Rajesh, ITC’s foods division GM (marketing). ITC is using Sachin for Dream Cream and Milky Magic brands.

     

    Source: The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

     

  • The on-ground division will also manage Pepsi T20 Football’s on-ground events in India

    ESPN STAR Sports launches ‘Event Management Group’

    By A Correspondent

     

    ESPN STAR Sports, Asia’s leading sports broadcaster, announced the launch of its on-ground division ‘Event Management Group’ (EMG) in India. The company also announced that PepsiCo India has signed on EMG to manage its mega football league Pepsi T20 Football’s on-ground events in India. As a part of the deal, ESPN STAR Sports is producing and showcasing the Pepsi T20 Football tournament in a special 8-episode series. EMG is also managing the School Quiz 2012, where it has roped in HDFC Life as the title sponsor. While the on-ground initiatives around HDFC Life School Quiz 2012 have already started, on-air telecast of the Quiz begin on June 01.

     

    The Event Management Group (EMG) will manage and promote premier sporting events around Asia. EMG specializes in creating, managing, promoting, consulting, producing and syndicating leading sporting events such as the KIA X Games Asia, KL World 5s and Guinness 9-Ball Tour. With over 1000 events in 11 countries, all events organised by EMG enjoy unrivalled regional broadcast across Asia through the ESPN and STAR Sports channels.

     

    Speaking on the occasion, Sanjay Kailash, Executive Vice President, ESPN Software India Pvt Ltd, said: “Our Event Management Group has firmly established itself across Asia Pacific with world class products designed to engage and entertain sports fans. It offers an exciting business opportunity in the India market as well. We can bring our deep international experience into play; create tailor made events and offer interesting and innovative marketing solutions using multiple platforms of ESPN STAR Sports. I am sure corporates will see lot of value in what EMG has to offer.”

     

    ESPN STAR Sports is a 50:50 joint venture between two of the world’s leading cable and satellite broadcasters. As Asia’s definitive and complete sports broadcaster and content provider, ESPN STAR Sports combines the strengths and resources of its ultimate parent companies – Walt Disney (ESPN, Inc.) and News Corporation Limited (STAR) – to deliver a diverse array of international and regional sports to viewers via its encrypted pay-TV services.

     

  • Red Digital will make use of consumer-centric platforms to help connect the online and offline worlds

    Red Digital bags social media duties for Mirinda

    By A Correspondent

     

    Red Digital has been awarded the social media mandate for PepsiCo’s Mirinda. Red Digital will build and execute social media strategies that will help Mirinda, as a brand, reach out to their audience on social media platforms. The agency will play a key role in creating online buzz about the brand’s new offerings along with launching various campaigns and building engagement across social networks.

     

    For Mirinda, Red Digital’s immediate mandate on social media is to create an impact for its latest breathless campaign, with which it has launched two new flavours, Mirinda Orange Masala and Mirinda Orange Mango, while continuing with the base Mirinda Orange flavour.

     

    The launch is supported by a robust 360-degree campaign called the Taste Twister Challenge, supported via Radio, Outdoor and On-Ground activities, along with social media.

     

    Red Digital will help in bringing the experience to Facebook and On-ground. The program requires consumers to call or SMS at 08800033333 to choose the Taste Twister of their favourite flavour and recite it repeatedly in one breath for as long as possible; longer the recording, greater are the chances of winning exciting prizes, including 10 MP3 players and 1 tablet PC every day. Red Digital has replicated this experience on Facebook and Android tablets for on-ground activation, making the programme truly 360-degree.

     

    Red Digital is also geared to exploit the new disruptive full sleeve packaging that captures the taste and fun experience of drinking Mirinda through applications on Facebook. These applications use the most prominent aspect of the packaging: the emoticons, to bring alive the new flavours. The applications range from allowing fans on the Mirinda India Facebook fan page to enter into an augmented reality world and play with the emoticons to classifying friends in various taste categories. The agency will also be creating an augmented reality iPhone and Android application.

     

    The campaign, for the first time ever, will also see Red Digital creating TweetMobs through the duration of this campaign. These will be high-impact subjects being tweeted by Mirinda and re-tweeted by a group of people within a specific time frame. Red Digital will connect with the Twitteratis and get as many people to tweet about the topic with various Mirinda branded hash tags creating a plethora of endorsements for Mirinda.

     

     

    Commenting on the development, Harsh Jain, Founder & Managing Director, Red Digital said: “Social media provides seamless opportunities to build interest groups. Digital is no longer just about showing banners and clicking on them. It’s about generating engagement, activation and creating convergence between the online and offline worlds. We are glad to have an innovative partner like Pepsi Co onboard and look forward to creating path-breaking innovations in new media in the near future. The new activities for Mirinda brand emphasize our continued focus on digital innovation aimed at bringing value to our clients.”

     

    Speaking on Mirinda’s partnership with Red Digital, Ruchira Jaitly, Executive Vice President – Marketing, Beverages (Flavours), PepsiCo India said: “Social Media has become a very important tool for engaging with consumers and having a dialogue with them on a constant basis. We are pleased to have Red Digital on board as our social media partner for this initiative. Their prior experience in handling leading brands coupled with a deep understanding of consumer behaviour in the digital space will ensure there is a high level of engagement and traction for Mirinda’s campaign on three flavours.”

     

  • A Coca-Cola spokesman confirmed the company is introducing Citra in "a few towns in Maharashtra and Gujarat" on a pilot basis

    Eye on volumes, Coca-Cola to revive Citra after 19 years

    By Ratna Bhushan

     

    Coca-Cola will revive Citra, a clear-lime drink it bought from Ramesh Chauhan two decades ago but junked in favour of Sprite, in a move that analysts believe is more to target price-sensitive consumer segments than to unlock the brand’s heritage value.

     

    A person familiar with the top beverages maker’s plans said Citra will be priced about 20 per cent cheaper than existing lime-lemon drinks such as its own brands Sprite and Limca as well as PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew and 7 Up, to target a wider audience and take on smaller brands.

     

    A Coca-Cola spokesman confirmed the company is introducing Citra in “a few towns in Maharashtra and Gujarat” on a pilot basis. This will be followed by a staggered launch across other metros and bigger cities.

     

    The move has surprised industry watchers because Coca-Cola’s Sprite, the second-largest soft drink brand in the country after Thums Up, leads the lime-lemon drinks segment, which is the fastest-growing soft drink category in India’s Rs13,000-crore fizzy drinks market.

     

    Among those surprised is Ramesh Chauhan, who created brand Citra and made it popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

     

    “After keeping the brand in cold storage for so many years, it’s strange they want to re-introduce it now, especially when they have a strong presence in the clear-lime segment,” Chauhan said. “If they are looking for retention and heritage value, then logically even Gold Spot should be revived.”

     

    When Coca-Cola re-entered India in 1993, it bought out all Parle brands except Bisleri from Chauhan.

     

    Move aimed at mopping up volumes

    While Citra and Gold Spot were phased out to make way for Coca-Cola’s global brands Sprite and Fanta, respectively, Thums Up, Limca and Maaza were retained. Shashi Kalathil, CEO of management advisory firm Y-factor and partner at private equity fund Exponentia Capital, said the move may be aimed at mopping up volumes. “Coca-Cola probably doesn’t want Citra’s pricing to impact its larger brands. So this could be more of a pricing game and about treating Citra more as a trademark than a brand,” he said.

     

    Parle brand again

    It’s history that the US major sidelined Parle’s cola brand Thums Up to promote its own brand Coca-Cola for years before waking up to the potential of the Indian brand and backing it.

     

    Now it seems like deja vu for Coca-Cola as it is banking on a Parle brand once again to push market share in the lime segment. The Coca-Cola spokesman said Citra would not cannibalise its existing lemon drinks because there is ample room for multiple brands in a developing segment like sparkling fizzy drink in a high-potential market such as India.

     

    Devendra Chawla, president of food & FMCG segments at the country’s largest retailer Future Group, said the move will aid the growth of the clear-lime category, which is already seeing heightened brand activity. “To grow carbonated soft drinks’ per capita in India, apart from growing colas, it’s critical to activate flavours which have natural acceptance from Indian consumers such as lime and mango,” said Chawla, who formerly worked with Coca-Cola.

     

    India’s per capita consumption of carbonated drinks is just 11 litres a year compared to 34 litres in China and 675 litres in Mexico.

     

    The lime-lemon category in India has been growing 16-17 per cent a year, ahead of colas at about 11-12 per cent and orange drinks at 8-9 per cent. Apart from being a familiar flavour that Indians consume at home (in the form of nimbu paani), lime-lemon drinks are considered ideal thirst quenchers.

     

    Both Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have been promoting their brands aggressively in this segment. PepsiCo has Bollywood star Salman Khan endorsing Mountain Dew and actor Sharman Joshi for 7 Up, while Coca-Cola pushes clear-lime drink Sprite and cloudy lemon drink Limca on the irreverent and freshness platforms, respectively.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2012, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved