Increase Customization to Satisfy Soda Shopper Needs

It’s no surprise that carbonated soft drinks have been on a sales decline for the past few years.  Subjects such as stronger health-focus, lower calorie sodas, and government-proposed taxes are just a few examples of contributing factors toward the category’s decline.  So what has beverage conglomerates done to respond to this challenge?  Increase their product assortment – especially in the low calorie segment – and expand their package ranges among existing flagship brands.  One such example of proliferating the package range is delivering even more customization at a grocery retailer.

Over the last few months, we have seen examples of this customization from both Coca-Cola and Pepsi.  Beverage Digest tweeted about Coca-Cola’s partnership with Kroger’s to deliver a retailer-specific merchandizing strategy, where individual 12oz (355ml) cans of soda were lined up in racks for shoppers to choose their desired composition for an 8- or 10-pack.

Want to be a soft drink bottler? Not quite. But Coke Kroger test allows creation of custom can multi-packs. twitter.com/BeverageDigest…

— Beverage-Digest (@BeverageDigest) March 19, 2013

Shortly after that, BevReview.com’s readers tip off a customized offering from Pepsi, offering a mix of both Pepsi and Mountain Dew in one 28- and 30-pack offering.

On the Shelf: Pepsi & Mountain Dew 28 Can “Combo Pack” bit.ly/15QDyOr

— BevReview.com (@BevReview) April 25, 2013

Both types of offering are examples of increased customization and are intended to satisfy more of the shopper’s needs.  Both are trying to ensure that the grocery retailer fulfills most (if not all) of their buyers’ soft drink requirements on that one shopping trip.  Coca-Cola’s offerings are also eliminating the fear of expired cans simultaneously.  After all, as a grocery shopper that previously had to buy a 12-pk of Tab but really only wanted 4 cans of Tab can now get these 4 cans, along with a couple cans of Fanta Orange and Fanta Grape.  Pepsi’s combo pack meets shoppers’ needs a little differently, but still offers customization since you can purchase both top-selling beverage brands in one case pack.

These custom offering are likely the end result of valuable shopper insights on consumption behavior.  What’s also interesting about Coca-Cola’s create-your-own-pack initiative is that it mimics their Coke Freestyle machine.  To remind some readers, the Coke Freestyle is the beverage manufacturer’s fountain unit that offers over 100 flavors of soda.  The important part to note for this machine is that in addition to allowing the thirsty consumer to create their own beverage mix, it also provides the Coca-Cola with information on what flavors are dispensed the most and possibly satisfy a previously unmet beverage need.  Creating your own multipack allows them to do the same thing, by monitoring shipment levels of individual cans and tracking the point-of-sale scanned data.

For Coca-Cola and Pepsi, this is an example of passing influence to the purchasers while maintaining their own product control.  By giving customers more choices and customization, they have effectively satisfied more of the shoppers’ needs and benefited themselves in the process with rich information.  Everyone wins in this scenario.

Pepsi “Mirrors” Ad Shows Beyonce’s Creative Influence

Beyonce drinks a can of Pepsi in her new “Mirrors” commercial, courtesy of adweek.com

Has anyone seen Beyonce’s new Pepsi commercial? Or a better question, has anyone seen the full one minute version rather than the thirty second version on TV? The full version has more footage prior to the mirrors breaking, revealing more of Beyonce’s personalities from her previous hits.  AdWeek has a nice summary of the spot so I won’t dwell on that for this post.  What I want to focus on is the message and the creative process, and Beyonce’s influence over this commercial.  See the full spot below.

Pepsi’s message to “Live For Now” comes through pretty loud and clear.  The advertisement chronicles Beyonce’s history of how she gained attention through her Destiny’s Child days and later found success as an individual artist.  All this shows is that Beyonce wouldn’t have attained her current success if not for her previous successes.  This has helped her secure a $50 million dollar deal “brand ambassador” with Pepsi, which goes beyond the typical spokesperson support by having Pepsi cede some creative control to Beyonce.  This commercial shows how Beyonce has influenced the creative process.

With their “Live for Now” tagline, Pepsi’s message has been about living for the moment.  The ad above ends with that same tagline so it appears that not much has changed.  However, what may be less obvious is Beyonce’s parting words, “Embrace your Past but Live For Now”.  It’s not just about the living in the moment, but also remembering where you came from.  To me, that is the influence that Beyonce had on the commercial.  Though the “Live For Now” message stays intact, the positioning is very different.

Pepsi’ Live For Now campaign, this one with Nicki Minaj from May 2012.

See also: Super Bowl Series: Did Pepsi’s Crowd-Sourced Halftime Show Add Any Value?

Pepsi’s previous commercials had solely focused on the “Live for Now” aspect.  Their Nicki Minaj commercials further glorified this component through the “Moment for Life” song, reaffirming the viewer to live in the moment.  That may have been Pepsi’s prior messaging, and it may very well with Nicki Minaj representing the beverage brand.  If it has changed, then it’s a sign of the changing times.  Nicki Minaj’s commercial was produced in May 2012, while Beyonce signed on with Pepsi in December 2012.  With Beyonce however, the Live For Now is still about the current moment, but only after embracing your past.  Could this be Pepsi’s new direction on leveraging on their successful history?

While Pepsi modifies the communication depending on the audience and medium, this enhancement with Beyonce is certainly unique.  It also makes a positive statement.  Could we expect Pepsi passing more creative control to Beyonce in future commercials, or have Beyonce involved with more of their social engagement campaigns?  Despite their contract saying that Beyonce will own some of the creative content, it would be wise for Pepsi to allow the songstress to have more involvement.   A truly collaborative partnership is one in which both partners care for the success and own  responsibilities, and having Beyonce feel a strong sense of ownership could only lead to further success for the cola brand.  Only time will tell, but I believe this is definitely the start of a very good collaborative partnership.

AQUAhydrate Grows Through Distribution and Celebrity Partnerships

Has anyone noticed the amount of press that AQUAhydrate has gotten recently?  After their rebranding effort in 2012, they have reached some significant milestones.  Most recently, they gained more national availability in the grocery channel with new distribution agreements at Safeway and Kroger’s.  They secured even more publicity after Mark Wahlberg and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs announced they were partnering with AQUAhydrate to help develop and execute the beverage brand’s business strategy.  What does all this mean for the brand and for Canadian consumers?  Will their continued success lead to stronger availability in Canada?  And how will celebrity partnerships help the beverage refreshment perform better?

Let’s answer the latter question first: will celebrity partnerships with Mark Wahlberg and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs help deliver stronger business performance?  It all starts with making the right choices; there must be mutual benefits beyond previous arrangements like the celebrity endorsement compensated financially.  When you are endorsing a beverage or any other product, you are mainly communicating the product or service benefits to the public.  There is no guarantee that you believe in its success or benefits – you are simply saying what you’ve been paid to say in order to make money.  However, what more and more companies realize that without any vested interest from the celebrity, it’s mainly a one-way transaction.  There is no passion for the refreshment beyond the financials.

Mark Wahlberg and Sean Comb speak to the media at the AQUAhydrate press conference. Courtesy of AQUAhydrate’s facebook page.

Through this realization, more companies are finding celebrities that truly believe in the product’s success.  Diet Coke found Jean-Paul Gaultier, Taylor Swift, and Marc Jacobs.  Pepsi found Beyonce.  Evian has been doing this for years, and has found a plethora of fashion designers willing to put their mark on collectible glass bottles each year.  All these celebrities are not just being paid to talk up their favorite beverage, rather they are involved with the business in some shape or form.  Beyonce is involved with Pepsi’s creative process and how the soda brand is represented to music fans worldwide.  In a similar sense, Wahlberg and Combs are expected to be involved with the business strategy component for AQUAhydrate.  They are expected to actively participate in helping get AQUAhydate into more grocery stores and more consumer shopping carts.  The fact that both celebrities chose to partner with AQUAhydrate, they must believe in the beverage’s business prospects and how they can add value.  Therefore, this business partnership should stand a very high chance of success.

To answer the former question on what this means to Canadian retailers and consumers, the new distribution arrangements should help.  Safeway is a grocery chain with an American presence as well as a Canadian presence, so the incremental distribution for AQUAhydrate could likely be the result of having the refreshment merchandised in Canadian Safeway grocery stores.  Some research and a quick question to the AQUAhydrate team revealed that the water beverage is indeed found in Safeway stores, as well as most Canadian GNC and Quebec Couche-Tard outlets.  Some readers have said that the beverage brand was also found in high-end grocery stores, so it can be expected that AQUAhydrate will continue to expand its Canadian presence.

Since its September rebranding effort, AQUAhydrate has rebounded and made some great strides forward.  With its expanded distribution and strong celebrity partnerships, there’s no doubt that the beverage brand is primed for even more success in the future.  With Walhberg and Combs on board to help with the business strategy, who knows what celebrity wants to sign on next with the brand to help propel it to new heights?

Super Bowl Series: Kraft MiO Fit Needed More Than 30 Seconds

The fourth and final installment of BevWire’s 4-part Super Bowl Series focuses on Kraft MiO Fit’s ad with the 2013 Super Bowl.  Along with the standard participation of Pepsi and Coca-Cola, this year we will also see Kraft MiO and SodaStream.  The Super Bowl Series will take a look at each of these beverage manufacturers’ involvement with the Super Bowl.

Click through to read the rest of the Super Bowl Series:

Part 1: Super Bowl Series: Did Pepsi’s Crowd-Sourced Halftime Show Add Any Value?

Part 2: Super Bowl Series: SodaStream Banned Commercial Help Build Brand Recognition

Part 3: Super Bowl Series: Coke’s Social Engagement Effort Delivers Mixed Reviews

While SodaStream made a lot of noise for it’s banned Super Bowl commercial, Kraft MiO also generated some buzz with its participation in the Super Bowl this year.  Having revealed that they will be featuring the Fit during the Super Bowl, they came up with this teaser campaign.  See the two videos below:

It appears that through the teasers, Kraft is aligning their liquid flavor enhancer with American patriotism.  With the colors of the American flag and the “America the Beautiful” being whistled in the background, would you agree?  The actual game day spot titled “Anthem” showcases Tracy Morgan asking you to welcome change to make America better.  After seeing the commercial, do you agree that MiO Fit is changing America for the better?  Did the commercial “work”? See the actual Super Bowl spot below:

Although MiO Fit could really be changing America for the better, it is highlighting a problem that no one really considered a problem in the first.  Was there anything wrong with Gatorade or Powerade that warranted improvement?  Most people do not think there was anything wrong with these sports drinks.  MiO Fit faces an uphill battle no matter what it does because it’s not just creating a product in an existing segment (flavor enhancers).  It is creating a new segment (liquid flavor enhancers) and must bring attention to a problem that no one was previously aware of.  In that perspective, it is changing America for everyone’s betterment since MiO Fit offers hydration and electrolytes to anyone with a bottle of water.  That is their end goal: raising awareness that there is a better delivery system out there for electrolytes.

In spite of this message, the feeling was that it lacked in overall effectiveness – the commercial did not work.  If you did not know already know about the MiO Fit, or if you were not a beverage fanatic, you would probably have dismissed this bland commercial.  Most successful Super Bowl commercials are funny or attention-grabbing, but it seems that the Fit’s commercial didn’t have enough of either component.  Super Bowl commercials tend to provide an easily followed storyline that can be communicated in 30 seconds or 60 seconds, using more imagery than words to convey this message.  Consider the GoDaddy Bar Rafaeli Smart-Sexy commercial.  Or the Doritos Goat For Sale commercial.  Both were memorable because it was funny, or it got your attention.  The Mio Fit commercial involved a lot of talking in 30 seconds, forcing the viewer to pay close attention in order to clearly articulate the message.  It lost the audience’s attention.  If it had kept their attention, then listening to the references about changing chicken nuggets and boy bands was actually funny.  Maybe if the spot was 60 seconds instead of 30, it would have had a stronger effect.  But cramming so much speech into 30 seconds without the showmanship of other Super Bowl spots is a recipe for disaster.  In the end, it seems this would be more suited for a YouTube release than a Super Bowl TV spot.

While the Kraft MiO Fit’s success cannot be judged by commercials alone, let alone one commercial, this one fell short of expectations.  It will depend on what else the liquid flavor enhancer comes up with in the future to promote this extension.  All great products fulfill a need, it’s just tough to get the right message across with only 30 seconds.

Super Bowl Series: Coke’s Social Engagement Effort Delivers Mixed Reviews

The third of BevWire’s 4-part Super Bowl Series focuses on Coca-Cola’s use of “second screen engagement” with the 2013 Super Bowl.  Along with the standard participation of Pepsi and Coca-Cola, this year we will also see Kraft MiO and SodaStream.  The Super Bowl Series will take a look at each of these beverage manufacturers’ involvement with the Super Bowl.

Click through the below links to read the other two parts of the BevWire Super Bowl Series.

Part 1: Did Pepsi’s Crowd-Sourced Halftime Show Add Any Value?

Part 2: SodaStream’s Banned Commercial Help Build Brand Recognition

Badlanders, Cowboys, and Showgirls all race toward the finish line for a bottle of Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola wanted viewers to vote at CokeChase.com to determine which group will win.  The winning group will be shown in the Coke ad after the Super Bowl game.

The general prognosis is that this year’s Coke Chase campaign was more successful than last year’s talking bears for the Polar Bowl.  Coca-Cola had released the original Coke Chase spot online before the Super Bowl, and also provided strong media support to hype it up.  There was even a spoof by Pepsi Next of the Coke Chase characters fighting to get a Pepsi Next rather than settle for a Coke.  All this led to a high level of buzz for the campaign, so much that it crashed the website as it experienced an unprecedented surge of site traffic.  AdAge’s Natalie Zmuda has a piece outlining how Coca-Cola decided what to do in real time during the Super Bowl to reconcile this problem here.  The ultimate goal was to have viewers vote for one of the three groups (badlanders, cowboys or showgirls) to win the race and the beverage at the end.  Coca-Cola would tabulate these results during the game and show the winning group getting the Coke following the game.

It was another effort by Coca-Cola to engage with viewers and communicate via the “second screen”, where users watching the television also simultaneously interact with  the advertising company or TV program through their mobile and computer screens.  Interact they did, to the tune of 1.3 million page views and over 900,000 votes for the different competing groups.  Despite these strong numbers, could this be deemed strong engagement by Coca-Cola with the audience this year?  Did most people stay to watch the Coca-Cola spot after the Super Bowl to see who won?  Were the results what Coca-Cola wanted?  See the original video:

My opinion is that the engagement exceeded expectations, and would have been even better had the server crash not occurred.  The amount of votes (900,000) certainly seems low considering the amount of sabotages (7.8 million), video views (3.8 million) and site visitors (1.3 million).  Everything was in the millions and the total votes were only 900,000?  I would expect voting to equal the amount of site visitors, or why else would you go to the website anyway?  If you were intrigued enough to visit the site, surely you would be engaged enough to vote.  However, this represents an enviable problem for Coca-Cola.  Interested viewers will keep on trying to log onto the site to vote, and this can be translated to a longer engagement period than simply logging on and voting in the first place.  The winning video generated about 50,000 views online, but there’s no definite way to quantify how many people saw it live even with the close game.  Here’s the winning video:

Since most people tune out after the game is decided, running a commercial following the game seems less likely to maintain their engagement.  However, voting and page views mattered more than the group wining the Coke at the end.  The end goal was to drive social engagement and  not to have one specific group win over another group.  The page view metric would be equivalent to that of over one million people viewing the original site, and clicking through another 6 commercials to sabotage the two other competing groups.  The winning video did not matter and the Twitter image below proves it: only 77 retweets and 57 favorites.

Note the minimal amount of retweets and favorites? Seems low for a Coke tweet considering the high profile nature of the Coke Chase campaign.

All in all, not too shabby for a company that was not the official sponsor of the event.  Think of how Pepsi always tries to insert itself into a Coca-Cola sponsored event (ie the Olympics) and there never being too much heard about them, at least not to the same extent.  Now think of how this was a Pepsi sponsored event and we often heard of Coca-Cola.  And parallel this with how the neon green Nike running shoes stole the spotlight during the 2012 London Olympics despite it being an Adidas sponsored event.

There will be many experts saying that Coca-Cola would have won this year’s cola war battle had it executed better.  This is likely true and will serve as a lesson for another broad scale event.  But being able to drive continuous engagement during a game, and getting over one million of these viewers to visit, vote, and click over six times to sabotage other competing groups is no small feat.  That itself already represents a win for Coca-Cola.

Super Bowl Series: SodaStream’s Banned Commercial Help Build Brand Recognition

The second of BevWire’s 4-part Super Bowl Series focuses on a portion of SodaStream’s involvement with the 2013 Super Bowl.  Along with the standard participation of Pepsi and Coca-Cola, this year we will also see Kraft MiO and SodaStream.  The Super Bowl Series will take a look at each of these beverage manufacturers’ involvement with the Super Bowl.  Click on each of the links below to read each of the 4-part series.

Part 1: Super Bowl Series: Did Pepsi’s Crowd-Sourced Halftime Show Add Any Value?

The above YouTube commercial represents the banned commercial from this year’s Super Bowl.  CBS rejected this version because it shows the Coca-Cola and Pepsi brands, as well as their bottles exploding.  These beverage giants are your annual participants that spend millions of dollars on your network, so it’s understandable that you do not want to upset them by having another advertiser humiliate the companies or their products.  For a relatively new player to the beverage market like SodaStream, this banned commercial marks a strong success – specifically because it was banned.  The new player must make some noise in the market to gain attention, and what better way to accomplish this feat than getting their commercial banned?  Traditional big-name companies want their ads to be seen during the Super Bowl since it has the largest viewing audience and helps them rename top of mind.  But for SodaStream and other emerging companies, this not necessarily be cost effective despite the desire to showcase their product or service.  These TV spots represent a significant investment ($4 million) and they may not want to get involved in a bidding war for only 30 seconds of publicity. They still want their ad to be seen, but their return on investment is much more critical to their bottom line.  By having their original ad banned and then creating a tamer version approved by CBS, SodaStream is maximizing their pre-game publicity.  Here is the approved version of that was shown on during the Super Bowl:

And like the banned version, the message still rings true.  You could have saved 500 million bottles if you had used their home carbonation product.

Since the day SodaStream publicized the prohibition of their original creative, they published the banned version online.  The commercial had already had amassed over 2 million hits after five days.  It’s no gangnam style or cute kitten video, but people are generally curious to see why certain things are kept from them.  Words like “banned” make it more intriguing to find out what was so alarming in the first place for it to be banned.   Consumers would go online to seek out the banned commercial after learning that CBS has prohibited them from seeing it.  SodaStream even advertises it now on their website, with the tagline of “Watch the SodaStream commercial they wouldn’t let you see during the big game”.

Despite all this heightened interest over the prohibited commercial, does this translate to anything material for SodaStream?  Will it generate sales or profits for the home carbonation beverage company?  The initial observation is that it will boost their Super Bowl return on investment, shortening the payback timeframe.  The total investment was $5 million given reports indicate that this ad cost $1 million to produce, along with the $4 million price tag of the 30 second spot.  To recuperate this $5 million, it would have taken Coca-Cola or Pepsi a few months since they have such a broad product portfolio and they are so well distributed in the marketplace.  SodaStream on the other hand is not as widely available and can be assumed to take longer to capture this $5 million.  They are also still trying to gain distribution in many locations, and lack the same level of brand recognition the other beverage advertisers has.

After this Super Bowl event, I do not expect brand recognition will be that big of a problem any longer.  Whether it was the company itself pushing to increase the public’s knowledge of their product or the media driving this exposure, SodaStream will become a household name.  And the stronger brand recognition will help them get into more retailers and sales locations.  For their existing outlets, this may represent increased sales.

What may have been 9 months or a full year to realize the gains could potentially be achieved in 6 months.  The total investment – $5 million – was certainly significant.  But the increased attention that resulted from the banned version along with displaying a Super Bowl commercial (during the fourth quarter of a close game) made this a worthwhile investment.