THIRST FOR YOURS

Innovation is one of the biggest reasons for incremental sales and expansion of user base in the FMCG world. 

#Cola companies understand this the best and therefore they keep bringing new launches to the market.

This time, Coca-Cola has gone ahead and launched two new flavours in the US market - Sprite Ginger and Sprite Ginger Zero Sugar. These ginger flavours are a fusion with their lemon-lime base, developed in response to the increasing popularity of ginger-flavoured sparkling drinks.

However, the brand did not just stop there. They went ahead and launched a limited edition line of clothes - Ginger Collection. Sprite got designer Jeff Staple on board, who crowd-sourced creatives on #Instagram and took inspiration from people across art, fashion and photography to come up with the designs.

Cola brands like Coke, Pepsi, #Sprite are part of the youth culture and they go beyond just the products. By giving their consumers the opportunity of wearing their clothes line, Sprite is taking yet another step to become a part of the consumers' lifestyle.

FEEL IT

They say, you cannot unsee something after you have seen it. 

The Coca-Cola Company is pushing the pedal in its new outdoor and print campaign in Europe, where they are relying on the strength of consumer memory.

The company is putting the Coca Cola logo on different platforms in the same font and angle as how it appears on their bottles.

The line above every ad reads 'Feel It' and that line triggers the mind to visualize the bottle without the bottle being there! 

This is an idea by #Publicis where they have gone ahead and leveraged the visual icons of the #Coke brand - the red colour, the font and the iconic bottle.

It is a great example of how consistency of certain elements around your #brand play a big role in brand building. Go ahead and see all three pictures and I am sure that you will also feel the bottle.

COCA COLA WELCOMES CHERRY BLOSSOM SEASON

#Japan is extremely popular for its cherry blossom (sakura) trees which announce the arrival of spring. These trees bloom for a period of two weeks in different parts of the country and locals as well as foreign tourists flock to those places to witness this magic come to life. 

Since 2017, Coca Cola has been celebrating this season with the launch of specially designed aluminium bottles. Continuing its tradition, this year also, Coca Cola has launched a new set of specially designed, beautifully decorated, limited edition cherry blossom bottles. 

This year’s design and layout shows sakura-tree branches and artfully depicts falling petals as well as cherry blossoms in different stages.

This is yet another example of Coca Cola integrating the local culture into its strategy and seamlessly becoming a part of that culture. 

The image below shows the different packaging of Coca Cola over the years. 

COFFEE COLA

In line with their strategy to diversify and keeping innovating #Pepsi has just announced the launch of their Pepsi Cafe range. 

This special combination of #cola with #coffee will be a limited edition that would be launched in the US market in April 2020 and would be available in two flavors - original and vanilla.

What is interesting is that Coca Cola has a similar product called Coke Plus Coffee, which is available in a few markets but still not available in USA. 

Will we see Coca Cola moving fast and bringing their product in the US markets before the debut of Pepsi Cafe? It's a wait and watch game. 

However, this also will eat into the share of the cold coffee market, so we will see lot of action from the coffee players as well to protect their share.

THE AHA MOMENT!

The #innovation engine at The Coca-Cola Company continues to churn out idea after idea!

Just a few weeks back, we saw Coca Cola venturing into cola flavoured mints and festive drinks to expand their franchise and boost incremental revenues. 

Now, for 2020, Coca Cola is gearing up for a big launch in the flavoured sparkling water market of USA with the launch of #AHA in eight new and exciting flavours in two sizes. 

This launch is yet another step from #Coke to move into healthier space as part of its beverage

#strategy. Mainstream flavoured sparkling #water is the largest and fastest growing part of the water business, and the current U.S. market size of $3.1 billion makes it the perfect playground for Coca Cola to enter.

American #consumers are gravitating toward drinks that have functional elements and nutritional value or a jolt of caffeine. They also want healthy, low-sugar or sugar-free offerings. Sparkling water ticks a lot of those boxes, and American consumers are buying more of it. 

#Pepsico already saw the potential, and in 2018, they had launched a range called Bubly in this segment. Bubly has grown sales by triple digits since then and has taken a 6.2% dollar share of the category this year.

This is a segment to watch closely.

FESTIVE FLAVOURS FOR WINTER

The Coca-Cola Company continues on its #innovation journey. 

After their recent launch of Coca Cola flavoured Tic Tac in the mints category in 70 nations, Coke has now come up with a limited edition range for winter in select markets.

They have introduced Coca Cola Cinnamon and Winter Spiced Cranberry Sprite - flavours that are relevant for the season and have a festive feel to it.  

                         

This #Coke and #Sprite range will only be available till 31st December, so the company wants to leverage #Christmas to drive their sales as much as possible, especially because cold beverage sale drops significantly in the winter months. So this is a great way to avoid the negative effects of seasonality on their sales graph. 

Good job by their #marketing and innovation teams.  

COCA COLA TIC TAC

The Coca-Cola Company and Ferrero have come together to launch #Coke flavoured Tic Tac in 70 markets globally! 

Although a licensed deal, this launch marks Coke's first foray into the mint category. The launch will be supported with an integrated marketing communications #campaign across TV, print and social media. This is an example of two iconic #brands coming together and using their individual distribution muscle and consumer base to reach out to more people and more channels, driving their brand equity and boosting their revenues beyond the core. 

It will be interesting to see how Pepsico reacts to this and how the existing confectionery players respond to such a launch!

                                                #FMCG #CPG #kunalviews #innovation

COCA COLA ENERGY + FLAVOURS

Earlier this year, Coca Cola Energy was launched in a few select markets and it has slowly been rolled out to 25 markets globally. 

Based on the initial response, #Coke is now rolling out the launch of Energy in USA. This launch will be accompanied with an exclusive cherry flavour launch for the US market. There will also be the zero sugar versions for Energy and Energy Cherry that will be available.

It is interesting to see how #CocaCola is diversifying into multiple #beverage segments beyond carbonated soda.

What is also interesting is the fact that Coke has a 16.7% stake in the energy drink Monster's company Monster Beverages! This means that Coke will try to dominate this segment from all fronts.

The energy drink category will see much more action in 2020 and beyond. Market leaders like Red Bull will also be watching this entry closely and coming up with their own game plan.

I'M IN. I'M OUT. OKAY NEXT.

Let your expressions, emotions and feelings come out. That is what Diet Coke is saying to consumers in UK.

They have launched 8 Limited Edition cans with short and snappy expressions so that consumers can pick the can that reflects their mood at that moment of time. All of these expressions have been chosen from modern lingo to connect with the youth and the packaging has been done to stand out on the retail shelves. These cans are a part of Coke's new 'You Do You' campaign by that is being launched across media touch points.

I am sure that consumers would love to pick these up, have conversations using these expressions and probably also collect all the expressions.

This is another step forward by Coke to stay relevant and cool among its target audience. 

HAPPY MEAL VS. UNHAPPY MEAL

The rivalry and battle between McDonald's and Burger King is becoming quite similar to the cola wars of Coca Cola and Pepsi few years back. Everyone knows about the Happy Meals from McDonald's that have been there in existence for years! 

Now, as a challenger brand, #BurgerKing had to do something to shift the conversation to its own combo meals. Therefore, a few months back, they announced a range of 'Unhappy Meals' and called it Real Meals. These meals were launched in collaboration with Mental Health America to raise awareness for Mental Health Month of May. This was built on the insight that no one is happy all the time. That’s the message Burger King is trying to communicate with these meals. The “Real Meals” include the Blue Meal (feeling blue), Salty Meal, Yaaas Meal (excited), Pissed Meal and DGAF (Don’t Give a F---) Meal to celebrate "being yourself and feeling however you want to feel."

They launched these meals in special boxes and also did a campaign called #FeelYourWay, which you can watch on the YouTube link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjxRUEA0Tdo&t=14s

hashtag#QSR #marketing #kunalviews #challengerbrands #branding #insight #consumer #McDonalds #food #colawars

WORLD'S 100 MOST VALUABLE BRANDS

The infographic below shows the brand value of the 100 most valuable brands in 2019 as released by #Forbes. 

As is evident, it is the tech companies that are ruling the roost in 2019, combining for a total of a mammoth $957 billion in brand value. Other than #Facebook, each of them have grown at a healthy double-digit since the year before. hashtag

#Financial services and #automotive sector are at a distant second and third ranking after #technology, and the traditional and reliable consumer goods sector comes in at the fourth rank.

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#brand #brandvalue #CPG #tech #valuation #billion

COCA COLA POINTS OUT RECYCLING BINS!

One of the consumer insights is that consumers would #recycle more if they knew the location of the recycle bins.

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#Coke used this finding and partnered recently with #Publicis Italy to do billboards across a few countries of Europe and turned their iconic swirls into fingers that point people to the nearest recycle bin. 

This is a great example of turning insight into execution in an innovative and effective way. It also shows the power and strength of the brand and its visual properties to be able to do such outdoor advertising without showing the product or a big logo.

hashtag #cocacola hashtag#outdoor hashtag#advertising hashtag#insight hashtag#consumer hashta#FMCG hashtag