vitaminwater spark…Yet Another Flavor

Regular readers of the blog will know that though I’m a fan of vitaminater as a brand, my belief is that this many varieties of vitaminwater undoubtedly cause cannibalization.  vitaminwater spark launched in mid-February, bringing the total count to 11 (9 vitaminwater flavors and 2 vitaminwater10) flavors.  spark is a blueberry grape flavor and has all the natural ingredients and healthy benefits that the other alternatives possess – it’s just a different flavor.

Unless spark has a niche following of open wallet consumers, it may follow vitaminwater rescue to be discontinued after some time on the market.  In any case, there is only so much demand for vitaminwater, or enhanced waters as a whole.  A consumer  that chooses any number of flavors will eventually stick to one or two, and keep on going back to these trusted choices.  Some (not all) of the remaining flavors may be popular but not to the same level as the favorites.  These flavors also remain on shelves contributing to incremental sales.  But since a grocery store has limited shelf space and must determine planograms, it is unlikely that all 11 flavors will be on shelf.

So how many flavors does a grocery store carry of vitaminwater, and how much shelf space does vitaminwater get?  Without getting into too much detail, vitaminwater’s top 4 flavors make up nearly 60% of their overall sales in the 20oz bottle size.  If the store manager or a category manager must make decisions to cut out flavors or keep only the best selling flavors (to make way for new products), usually 4 flavors of vitaminwater are kept.  So far, spark is not generating as much sales as XXX, focus, multi-V or essential.  Though its still very new to the market, I doubt it will match any of those item’s sales.

Therefore, it is like that there are no volume thresholds that spark must meet in order for glaceau to keep it on shelf, except providing their hydration experts (sales representatives) with incentives to keep pushing this product.

Next time you head into a grocery or convenience store where this product is sold, take a quick count of what flavors of vitaminwater are on shelf, and if spark is among those.  If the two new introductions before spark are not even on shelf, then it’s likely that the particular retailer does not have  an appetite to try any more vitaminwater flavors.

glaceau smartwater: Jennifer Aniston Has a Sex Tape

Jennifer Aniston doesn’t really have a sex tape, but the original name for her video ad that she made for smartwater was named a sex tape, that’s all.  glaceau smartwater has been using Jennifer Aniston as their spokeswoman for some time and the water company has been known to come up with entertaining advertisements for some time now.  This new video shows their creativity in getting people’s attention again.  The video features a kid lip-syncing a popular song, puppies, babies dancing, double rainbow plug, groin kicks, and cheesy porn music – each element being successful in getting viewer’s attention online lately, all rolled into one satirical video.  And then it finishes reminding you about smarrtwater being pure.

This ad’s been getting a lot of negative attention from the internet viewers, saying that the ad isn’t creative and tacky.  The claim is that the video doesn’t really have any creativity – all it does is have a celebrity spokeswoman and an attention-grabbing video title.  However, how do you define the success of any advertisement, wouldn’t getting attention be deemed successful?  Looking at alternate video sensations, aren’t Old Spice, Paul Vasquez (double rainbow guy), and Volkswagen’s Mini Darth Vader successful because of their ability to get your attention?

If we were to look at it in the traditional way of AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action from the university advertising textbooks), this video may be considered a success.  It has gained instant attention and interest given its title and has many people searching out the video online to view it to find out what this “Jennifer Aniston sex tape” is all about.  On the desire spectrum, this video may fall short because in the entire video only about 30 seconds are spent to tell you what the product is all about (purest tasting water there is).  For action, the sales results will measure will show how successful this ad is with sales before and after the video ad.

Another way to look at it, despite negative attention is the overarching goal of advertising.  Companies advertise to get your attention and peak your interest in their product, and increase it’s share of mind.  The video has shot up internet video ranking charts and has more people aware about the product; not sure about knowledge of the product’s benefits itself, but it has certainly made more people know it’s out there.  So if that’s the main goal of advertising, I would say that it’s pretty successful.  If smartwater were executing a multiple-phased ad campaign, then this would definitely be phase one where people are made aware of the product itself (and then later phases educating the consumer on the product’s benefits on how pure the water is and how it’s been manufactured).

Only smartwater’s marketing guys can truly tell you if this video has been a success or not, but the video has already gotten 6.5 million youtube views in a little over a week’s time.  Not too shabby.

update: Advertising Age says that the Jennifer Aniston video ranks as this week’s top viral video (most unique views).   See article and ranking chart here.

vitaminwater10 arrives in Canada

BevWire recently recently wrote about new vitaminwater being introduced to the Canadian market (read here) and it turns out it was true but slightly inaccurate.  It turns out that yes, there will be more vitaminwater, but now it’s in the 10-calorie per bottle format.  Same bottle, similar packaging, and promising the same great taste with less calories.  In order to bring the calorie content down to 10, these two new flavors are naturally sweetened with Truvia (a plant based sweetener).

Two flavors are entering the Canadian market – Recoup and Go Go. Recoup will be a peach-mandarin flavor, and Go Go being a mixed berry flavor.  Recoup’s side label copy – (cue: movie trailer voice guy) in a world of neurotic bosses, in-laws, dying cell phones and agonizing relationship talks, one bottle stands alone.  naturally sweetened with only 10 calories per bottle and armed with vitamins b3, b5, b6, & b12 this tasty force of hydration can help you cope with whatever life throws your way, coming to tastebuds near you. And Go Go’s side label copy – how can you possibly be reading this label right now? isn’t there a meeting that you should be in? a gym you’ve been paying for? when everyday is a marathon something’s gotta give.  fortunately, this delicious source of hydration you’re holding has some vitamins and nutrients to help motivate you towards your daily finish line.  and to sweeten – or naturally sweeten – the deal,  we made it with only 10 calories.  now hurry and go – you’re already late! These two new flavors can be found anywhere your regular vitaminwater is sold – grocery stores, supermarkets, convenience stores, and mass merchandisers.

Is this a good time for glaceau to launch vitaminwater10?  While they are the market leader in the enhanced waters category, they are late to join the 10 calorie niche.  Aquafina Plus10 stepped into the Canadian market nearly a year ago and vitaminwater10 is only being made available?  We know that vitaminwater10 will be successful when it enters, but why take so long to come out with the innovations?  And will this mean that there will be less regular vitaminwater flavors now that there’s a 10 calorie version?

It turns out that Aquafina Plus10 has been experiencing a natural transition from the regular Aquafina Plus to the Aquafina Plus10 and also slightly growing market share.  This is likely related to a few factors: healthier perception of a lower calorie alternative, discontinuing slower moving Aquafina Plus options, and no innovations from its competitor.  Sources indicates that Aquafina Plus10 accounts for nearly half of their enhanced water sales since its launch in 2009.

That being said, vitaminwater figures that they were due for some innovation launch and should also release a lower calorie alternative to compete and regain lost market share.  However, the market can only sustain so many flavors and options for beverages – does this spell the end for some other flavor of vitaminwater? Aquafina Plus discontinued a few flavors when they launched the Plus10.  There will be a total of eleven glaceau vitaminwater and vitaminwater10 options if they do not delist something – definitely too much for the marketplace in my opinion.  That said, we have yet to see any vitaminwater10 in stores yet so either glaceau will be taking some flavors off the shelf themselves or grocery stores will do the delisting for them.

So my parting question for this week’s blog psot: if you were to discontinue one or two flavors of vitaminwater, which flavor would you choose?

Is More vitaminwater Coming to Canada?

BevWire has learned that there may be more vitaminwater flavors on the way.  Speaking with some industry sources and then browsing through the trademark database, BevWire has found that there’s two new flavors registered with the Canadian trademark database – Balance and Endurance.  In the United States, Balance is a Cranberry-Grapefruit flavor and Endurance is a Peace-Mango flavor.  Will these flavors be the same in Canada, or are they merely the same names for other flavors (ie. Mega C in Canada is Power C in the U.S., Restore in Canada and Revive in the U.S., and so on)?

BevWire has always been very critical of a product over-extending its reach and this is a classic example of this scenario.  With these two new flavors entering the Canadian market, that brings the total number of vitaminwater flavors up to eleven. What threshold is vitaminwater using to determine that there is enough sales potential to release additional flavors?  Will these two new flavors replace two older flavours, and which ones will be replaced?

While the enhanced beverage category is still growing, it’s at a decreasing growth rate.  This indicates that vitaminwater is still increasing its sales and has not reached a market saturation point, but the saturation point may be close.  At the end of March 2010, the enhanced beverages market was over $6 million in sales.  Vitaminwater garners about 60% market share, thus accounting for $3.6 million overall and $400 000 for each flavour (rough numbers since some sell better than others).  If that’s the case, then a simple threshold to pass would require than each flavour sell at least $400 000 in order to stay on the market – without accounting for cannibalization.  BevWire thinks that $400 000 for new flavors may be difficult to hit, and therefore some flavors must be discontinued to make way for Balance and Endurance.  The question then becomes which flavors currently underperform and justify being removed from the shelf?

In any case, no word on official launch dates yet.  The trademarks have been approved and are awaiting registration (pending official complaints from other people over these names).  Keep an eye on for which flavors disappear from the shelves when these two hit the market.



Glaceau Vitaminwater Launches 355ml Multipack

Look out, there’s more vitaminwater coming our way.  Following up on their success with the 591ml single bottle, vitaminwater will now release a 4-bottle 355ml multipack.  This 355ml multipack will be released in three flavors: XXX, Multi-V and Essential.

vitaminwater is likely targeting a different customer set with this 4-bottle package, as they are only stocking it in drug and grocery stores, and big box supermarkets.  Bevwire also found out that the price point is upwards of $5 for the 4pack (basically $1.25/bottle), which is pretty decent considering the $2+ price point for the 591ml.  It wouldn’t make any sense to put it in the convenience channel anyway, since that is where most of their money is made with the single bottle and they would risk heavy cannibalization.

Even though Bevwire has always been critical of how many flavors vitaminwater has, I am curious as to why they only selected these three flavors of XXX, Multi-V and Essential.  While they are popular, there are other market-friendly flavors as well and they were not chosen.  What about Energy?  Or Focus?  Or Restore?  These other three tend to be quite popular flavors as well.  It could be the fact that they do not want to saturate the market (as it looks like they may have with the 591ml bottle).  One only needs to look across the border to see what I mean by saturation.  In addition to the 591ml bottle, there is also a 1L bottle, a 355ml 12pack multipack and variety pack, and a 473ml 4pack.  There reaches a certain point where too many product choices for a customer leads to no purchase at all.  Fortunately, Canada has not reached that point yet.

In any case, be on the lookout for these multipacks and their clever on-package marketing.

Segment or Brand – Article From Beverage Spectrum

An online article from Beverage Spectrum’s Gerry Khermouch sheds light on how some beverage categories are strong with opportunity to grow while others just have one strong brand while other competitors barely make a dent (article link here).  In the article, Gerry Khermouch mentions that vitaminwater, 5-Hour Energy, and Gatorade spawned a new beverage category (enhanced water, energy shot, sports drink, respectively) and copycat products eager to captialize on the category have entered the market but without much success.

“It implies that what appears to be abundant opportunity really is a solo success story, and all the pretenders are doomed to exhaust a lot of money, energy and credibility in a fruitless effort. That doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to build off that conspicuous success, but it won’t happen just by throwing your hat in the ring with your own version. ” ~ Gerry Khermouch

The article mentions that there has been success for other brands, but the success has not been easy to come by. Pouring lots of money to market the product doesn’t always bring success either (as seen by numerous enhanced water beverages, energy shots, and sports drinks in the marketplace).  Sobe Life Water, Red Bull, and Powerade have all seen limited success given the amount of resources they have put into growing their brands.  Competing on price doesn’t always help either.  If you have poured significant funding just to enter and compete on price alone, the likely result is that your product is no better than a private label product – so why bother entering the market?

The real opportunity to gain market share would be through innovation.  Innovation either improves on a beverage already on the market, or launches a new category altogether to meet a previously unmet need.  Let’s use the energy drink category to draw examples from.  Jolt Cola and Red Bull.  While Jolt Cola entered the market first in 1985 with their offering, Red Bull came in two years later with their version of an energy drink.  Red Bull improved on areas where Jolt Cola was lacking and quickly gained the majority of the energy drink market.  Jolt Cola may have contained more caffeine, or Red Bull’s marketing expertise helped them gain the leadership position.

Or Red Bull and 5-Hour Energy for another example.  Red Bull may have been the first to launch an energy drink and grow the category, but 5-Hour Energy innovated and spawned a segment within the category.  While other energy drinks entered the market to compete against Red Bull in the cold vault and cooler doors, 5-Hour Energy developed a small energy shot that was located at the till rather than where the rest of the energy drinks were.  Customers shopping on impulse would still see 5-Hour Energy at the checkout counter after the rest of the energy drinks are left behind in the cold vault.  As the article mentions, Red Bull’s energy shot offering is still fighting to gain significant market share.

As Gerry Khermouch says, “Healthy skepticism must be maintained about brands that are just expecting to cruise down the roads carved by segment pioneers.” You just cannot rely on your brand name to bring you success.  The beverage company has to work on developing a great product through innovation and market it properly in order to succeed.