Influx Insights Tag Feed: coke

red bull gets the chance to act like a challenger brand again

Influx Insights — 2008-08-21T18:21:12Z

Red Bull is one of the iconic challenger brands. A brand that's managed to maintain its street cred over time with smart communication and a finely focused understanding of what its brand stands for.

However, Red Bull has been a "one trick pony"- extracting more and more from a single SKU and resisting the temptation to line extend itself to death. Something that certainly would have happened if the company had been taken over by one of the soda giants.

Red Bull's latest move must have those same soda giants sweating because the new line extension, is a cola with a twist; a completely natural version.

This is a product formulation that's achieved some success in countries like Germany and even Pepsi has experimented with a new natural variant called RAW, but Red Bull could be onto a winner here.

The brand has significant awareness, a massive distribution system and the challenger credentials to help it take on the giants. On top of all this, the brand has the zeitgeist impact of the shift to all things natural and a backlash against un-natural sodas, in its favor.

Via Coolhunting

Posted by Ed Cotton

coke to buy vitamin water

Influx Insights — 2007-05-23T10:42:45Z

With demand for CSDs tumbling worldwide, Coke appears to be back in acquisition mode. Rumors are circulating that the Atlanta giant is about to purchase Glaceau, the makers of the very succesful Vitamin Water brand. This is a great move for Coke because Vitamin Water seems to be delivering the right experience for today's generation of soft drink consumers; it's water based, but not as boring as water and has a "natural" profile (the product has quite a high sugar content, but it's perceived as being more natural than a CSD).

Vitamin Water is first and foremost a success story built around a smart product formulation, great packaging and smart distribution.The product was launched in 2000, but only started advertising and using celebrity endorsers in the last three years.

Recently, Outlaw Consulting conducted a survey to discover the most trusted brands amongst Generation Y "trendsetters", Vitamin Water ranked 14th, just behind Converse and ahead of Red Stripe.

The Energy Brands company built it's business on Glaceau Water, packaged in a 20oz bottle designed by Phillipe Starck. Looking to expand the distribution base from health food stores and independent delis and grocery stores, Energy created Vitamin Water.

According to the WSJ, Glaceau's founder J. Darius Bikoff created Vitamin Water in a "Eureka like" moment.

"...standing in his kitchen sipping bottled water. Feeling run down, he slipped a vitamin C wafer into his mouth, and the citrus flavor combined with the clean water registered on his taste buds, and in his entrepreneurial mind."

His next step was to bring together a food scientist, a dietician, a flavor expert and a microbiologist to help create the formula. Armed with the formula, the company set about distributing the product to independent stores and those with more of a health focus. The company couldn't afford to pay the slotting fees charged by the large grocery chains, so it built momentum from the ground up. One of its smartest decisions was sell it together with the other bottled waters, in this environment Vitamin Water's packaging stood out and was the perfect place to convert water drinkers to a new experience.

It will be interesting to see how Coke can help Vitamin Water, obviously there will be some immediate advantages generated by economies of scale and perhaps with marketing. The brand has recently stepped up its efforts to compete against the giants, even being bold enough to sign on atheltes (Iverson, Allen, Ortiz..) as "investors". One interesting element of Vitamin Water's advertising is that it has been pretty light hearted, especially with its on-pack copy.

On the Raspberry Fruit Water, the copy opens with

"Chinese food, diet drinks. Usually and hour after finishing both you want more again.Hmm..we smell conspiracy."

Coke shouldn’t mess with this, but its biggest challenge will be to grow Vitamin Water, while trying to protect its own water and sports drink franchises. While it will feel it needs to develop a clear positioning for the brand, which is important, it will also be essential to understand how this positioning fits with the other brands in it’s massive portfolio.

can coke reinvent coke?

Influx Insights — 2007-06-06T19:46:25Z

When a financial analyst announces that he recognizes the impact of one of your recent product launches, but is concerned that it's not enough, your brand has a lot of work to do.

"While the current success of the brand (Coke Zero) in volume terms is beyond dispute, we do not believe it is enough to resolve the core issues Coca-Cola faces: to halt the slide in the carbonated soft drink category and improve Coca-Cola's category share."

Robert van Brugge-Bernstein

CSDs are in massive decline worldwide because people are seeking healthy alternatives.

Coca-Cola has been skirting around the edges without cracking the real problem; they are reducing calories and they are even adding vitamins. They are trying to make the product healthier, but they need to find a way to make a CSD with nothing artificial in it and a reduce the sugar content.

We've already reported on 7-UP's attempt to make this happen.

It makes sense to expand the portfolio into juices and waters, but people would drink CSDs if they were natural and available everywhere- people are already making them.

Some are very succesful.

How hard can it be for someone with the resources of Coca-Cola?