Consumer Behaviour- Soft Drink Industry Essay

induction The soft draw exertion in India is one of the around matched with numerous international and home(prenominal) players operating in the foodstuff. Initially domestic players c ar Parle group dominated the Indian soft throw grocery with tarnishs like Thums up, Limca, Goldspot etc. However with the re-entry of MNC players like Pepsi in 1991 and Coca-Cola in 1993, the market place took a decisive shift in favour of these MNCs and over the old come on Coca-Cola and Pepsi have become the striking players in the market. Soft tipsinesss can be principally classified into carbonated and non-carbonated.Carbonated drinks include the skinny, lemon and chromatic flavors while non carbonated drinks principally comprise of mango flavor. The carbonated dummy products constitute 60% of the soft drink market and tercet prominent stigmas in this category atomic number 18 Pepsi, Coca-Cola and Thums up. Thums up was a blade from Parle until Coca-Cola bought it in 1993 and tried to pull down it to push its admit print. But the loyal customers of Thums up never let it die and the brand quiet down is the conduct brand in the Indian soft drink market. caller profile The Coca-Cola Comp either The Coca-Cola Company is the pieces largest drunkenness company. The companys topper kn experience product Coca-Cola was invented by John Stith Pemberton in 1886. The Coca-Cola coordinateula and brand was bought in 1889 by Asa mickledler who incorporated the Coca-Cola Company in 1892. Coca-Cola currently offers just about four hundred brands in over 200 countries or territories and serves 1. 5 meg servings each day. The Coca-Cola Company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Its current chairman and CEO is Muhtar Kent.Coca-Cola was the leading soft drink brand in India until 1977 when it left rather than uncover its formula to the government and reduce its candour stake as take under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) which governed the tradin g operations of unusual companies in India. After a 16-year absence, Coca-Cola returned to India in 1993, cementing its presence with a smokestack that gave Coca-Cola ownership of the nations top soft-drink brands and bottling intercommunicate. atomic number 6s accomplishment of local popular Indian brands including Thums.Up (the to the highest degree trusted brand in India), Limca, Maaza, Citra and Gold Spot provided not only physical manufacturing, bottling, and statistical dissemination assets but too upstanding consumer preference. This combination of local and international brands enabled Coca-Cola to bring the values of global branding and global trends in tastes while also tapping into handed-down domestic markets. From 1993 to 2003, Coca-Cola invested more(prenominal) than US$1 billion in India, do it one of the countrys top international investors.By 2003, Coca-Cola India had won the prestigious Woodruf Cup from among 22 divisions of the Company based on iii broad parameters of volume, profitability, and quality. Coca-Cola India achieved 39% volume growth in 2002 while the industry grew 23% nationally and the Company reached breakeven profitability in the region for the premier(prenominal)ly time. Encouraged by its 2002 performance, Coca-Cola India announced plans to double its capacity at an investment of $125 million (Rs.750 crore) between September 2002 and March 2003.Coca-Cola India produced its beverages with 7,000 local employees at its twenty-seven wholly-owned bottling operations supplemented by seventeen franchisee-owned bottling operations and a network of twenty-nine contract-packers to manufacture a go of products for the company. The complete manufacturing process had a documented quality control and assurance program including over 400 tests performed throughout the process.The complexity of the consumer soft drink market demanded a distribution process to support 700,000 retail outlets serviced by a fleet that includ es 10-ton trucks, open-bay three wheelers, and trademarked tricycles and pushcarts that were delectationd to navigate the narrow alleyways of the cities. In addition to its own employees, Coke indirectly created employment for anformer(a) 125,000 Indians through its procurement, supply, and distribution networks.Sanjiv Gupta, prexy and CEO of Coca-Cola India, joined Coke in 1997 as Vice President, merchandising and was instrumental to the companys success in developing a brand relevant to the Indian consumer and in tapping Indias vast country-bred market potential. Following his marketing responsibilities, Gupta served as Head of Operations for Company-owned bottling operations and then as Deputy President. Product Range The product range of Coca-Cola includes beverages like * Coca-Cola The parent brand of Coca-Cola Company, Coca-Cola has a truly remarkable heritage.The earths favourite drink. * Thums Up Strong Cola taste. Thums Up is a leading sparkling soft drink and most trus ted brand in Indian soft drink market. * Sprite A global leader in the lemon lime category, it is second largest sparkling beverage Brand in India. Sprite with its cut-thru perspective has managed to be a true teen icon. Sprites all about world true to yourself and living by the simple and honest code of your own instincts. No more. no less. * Fanta Over the years Fanta has occupied a hefty market place and is identified as The Fun gas pedal.Perceived as a fun youth brand, Fanta stands for its vibrant color, beguiling taste and tingling bubbles. * Limca Lime n lemoni Limca can cast a tangy refreshing spell on anyone, anywhere. Born in 1971, Limca has remained unchallenged as the No. 1 Sparkling drink in the hidden lemon segment. * Minute Maid Pulpy Orange One of worlds largest juice drink brands. Eliminated 80% of the water in orange juice, forming a frozen concentrate that when reconstituted created orange juice. * Maaza Imagine the delicious fruit, mango tree bottled.This is what Maaza is all about. Universally loved for its taste, color, thickness, Maaza is the mango lovers first choice. * Kinley Mineral water, a thirst quencher that refreshes, a life vainglorious string that washes all the toxins away. * Georgia Introduced in 2004, the GEORGIA Gold range of tea and Coffee beverages is the perfect solution for your office and restaurant needs. Product entropy Thums Up Background Thums Up is a carbonated soft drink ( pot) popular and largest selling brand in India where its bold, red thumbs up logo is common.During the late 1970s, the American cola giant Coca-Cola abandoned operations in India rather than make a forced sale of 60% of their equity to an Indian company. Following this, the Parle brothers, Ramesh Chauhan and Prakash Chauhan, along with then CEO Bhanu Vakil, launched Thums Up as their flagship drink, adding to their portfolio of older brands Limca (lime flavor) and Gold Spot (orange flavor). Thums Up was basically a cola drink, but t he company never claimed it as such. The formula was just as closely guarded as the famous Coke formula.Thums Up enjoyed a near monopoly with a much stronger market share often overshadowing its other rivals like Coca-Colas Campa cola, Double seven and Dukes, but there were many small regional players who had their own market. It even withstood liquor giant unite Breweries Group (makers of Kingfisher Beer) Mcdowells Crush, which was another Cola drink, and Double Cola. In 1990, when the Indian government opened the market to multinationals, Pepsi was the first to come in. Thums Up went up against the international giant for an intense onslaught with neither side giving any quarter.With Pepsi roping in major Indian pictorial matter stars like Juhi Chawla, to thwart the Indian brand, Thums Up increased its spending on cricket sponsorship. Then the capacity went from 250ml to 300ml, aptly named MahaCola. This nickname gained popularity in smaller towns where the great unwashed would ask for Maha Cola instead of Thums Up. The consumers were divided where some felt Pepsis mild taste was rather bland. In 1993 Coca-Cola re-entered India after a extended absence from 1977 to 1993. But Coca-Colas entry made things even more complicated and the fight became a three-way dispute.That same year, in a move that baffled many, Parle change out to Coke for a exiguous US$ 60 million (considering the market share it had). Now Coca-Colas, and Coke has a habit of killing brands in its portfolio that might overshadow it. Coca-Cola short introduced its cola in cans which was all the rage in India, with Thums Up introduced alongside, albeit in minuscule numbers. Later Coca-Cola started pulling out the Thums Up brand which at that time still had more than 30% market share.Despite its strong overall equity, the brand Thums Up was losing its popularity among the core cola drinking age group of 12 to 25 year olds, partly due to goose egg advertising. Coca-Cola apparently did try to kill Thums Up, but soon realized that Pepsi would benefit more than Coke if Thums Up was withdrawn from the market. Instead, Coke decided to use Thums Up to attack Pepsi. The Coca-Cola Company by this time had about 60. 5% share of the Indian soft-drink market but much to its dismay represent out that if it took out Thums Up, it would remain with only 28.72% of the market (according to a report by NGO Finance&Trade in India), hence it once again dusted out the Thums Up brand and re-launched it targeting the 30 to 45 year olds. The brand was re-positioned as a manly drink, design on its strong taste qualities. Known to be a strong drink with more power packed into it than other colas, Thums Up kick-started an vulturous campaign directly attacking Pepsis TV ads, focusing on the strength of the drink hoping that the depiction of an adult drink would appeal to newborn consumers. Grow up to Thums Up was a successful campaign.The brands market share and equity soared. The brand was unshakeable and Coca-Colas declaration that Thums Up was Indias premier cola brand in terms of market share did not surprise many. Other campaigns from Thums Up build on its strength and its perception as a macho drink. Ads showing the Thums Up man, riding through the desert in search of a cantina that sells Thums Up rather than drink another cola, stuck in the minds of many Indians and caught the imagination of youngsters who penury to be seen as men. 4 Ps of Marketing intermixture for Thums Up.Product Thums Up is known for its strong, fizzy taste and its confident, mature and unequivocally masculine attitude. This brand clearly seeks to separate the men from the boys. Beverage offered by the company in the size of * SSRB (Standard size returnable bottle) * PET (600 ml, 1. 5 liter plastic bottle) * CANS (tin pack 330 ml) Price Thums Up has adopted challenger based pricing and so the prices are similar to that of other cola drinks. 1. Glass Bottles 200ml, 300ml Rs 12. 00 onw ards 2. PET Bottles 600ml, 1500ml, 2 ltrs, 2. 25 ltrs. Rs 25. 00 onwards 3. Can 330ml Rs 35. 00 45. 00 4.Fountain Customized Rs 15. 00-35. 00 can go upto Rs 60. 00 in movie halls Company offers give the sack on prices or extra quantity of cold drink during braw seasons and winter seasons. Place Thums Up has a strong distribution logical argument to make the product available in the market any time, and exercise optimum level of stock in the market. It covers the rural part also to increase the customer reach. The soft drink is made available at all the possible convenient locations to the customers local area grocery shops, hotels, restaurants, movie halls, multiplexes, shopping malls, supermarkets vending machines, fountain outlets.Promotion Thums Up has consistently create its sales promotion through various techniques like, blind taste tests, sponsoring raise events and sports, conducting various contests (win a motor bike contest), etc. Also its ads are designed to create excitement and to communicate the macho personality of the brand. An ad campaign of Thums Up where Akshay Kumar (its brand ambassador since 2003) performs the extreme sport of parkour to kidnapping his bottle of Thums Up from a suggestively attractive lady. Taste the Thunder has been the most breakthrough communication campaign for the brand.It stands for masculinity that has constantly been redefined over the years. tilt Thums Up went from being the only cola in the cantina to facing rivalry from both Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Twenty-six years later its still a top cola in India and is one of the strongest brands in the country across categories. The brand names positive associations of victory, achievement and celebration are apparently merited as it continues to do well despite a challenging landscape. Thums Ups first competition came in the form of Campa Cola.There were allegations of aggressive exchanges between the two brands at street level but Thums Up (owned by Parle at the time) apparently won the battle both on the ground and in the consumers mind. Campa Cola give up in 2000 (only to re-emerge as less of a challenger in 2002 from Pure Drinks New Delhi). For a short while Thums Ups strong taste enjoyed success across the country with scarcely any competition the brand reigned supreme in the cola market. Currently Thums Up is facing competition from lots of brands coming in the soft drink industry and still it has maintained its top position in the minds of Indian consumers. forthwith, an Indian consumer sees Thums Up as a unique brand personality which no other brand has acquired in the soft drink industry. outcome Thums Up is amongst the oldest domestic brands in soft drinks industry in India and it is the most popular and trusted brands in India. Thums Up enjoyed a near monopoly in India with a much stronger market share till 1990s. But with the orgasm of Pepsi (1992) and Coca Cola (1993), Thums Up started facing stiff competition . In 1993, Parle sold out to Coke and Thums Up became the brand of Coca-Cola Company.Though Coca-Cola tried to kill Thums-Up to build its own brand, it sooner realized the importance of Thums Up to brave in the Indian market to beat its core competitor Pepsi. Today Thums Up has grown its image from just a soft drink to a lot more for Indian consumers. It has established itself as a distinguished brand with strong taste and which communicates maturity, daring and excitement to its consumers. Thums Up has consistently maintained honesty and trust with its consumers and thats why it is still the number one cola brand in the country.