customize your life Created by MatchPoint Inc.
Jennifer Gavens Cordell Martin Sarah Wang
Table of Contents Brand History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Advertising History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Situation Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Market Situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Target Users and Buyers . . . . . . . . 5
Competitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
National Environmental Trends . . . . . . . 7
Positioning Recommendation . . . . . . . . . . 8 Creative Brief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Creative Executions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10
Brand History
Beginning of Energy Brands Have you ever been scared to drink the tap water? Well that’s how John Darius Bikoff felt about Manhattan tap water. This feared inspired Bikoff to consider what the bottle water industry had to offer. He determined that there was not an existing water beverage out there that suited his needs. From this thought he founded Energy Brands in May 1996. After using most of his personal savings and contracting with an aquifer company in Connecticut he developed his first Glacéau product called Smart Water. Smart Water, which of course is distilled water, also includes electrolytes such as calcium, magnesium and potassium and enhanced hydration value for athletes and other exercise enthusiasts. Bikoff then began to personally drive his products to small independent grocers around New York to get shelf space. It was recorded that within the first year he managed to sell 15,000 cases of water. Two years after his launch of Smart Water, he introduced Fruit Water in 1998, which he considered as part of the Glacéau Water+ Family. This drink was made of the ingredients of Smart Water but was enhanced with fruit flavorings and zero calories. Energy Brands Inc. soon dived into marketing energy drinks, which included energy enhancers such as caffeine and ginseng. He wanted these new types of drinks to be sold to athletes, club hoppers, students and others in need of a lift.
The New Invention Vitamin c and mineral water. These two basic, cold reducing remedies are what sparked the creation of Vitamin Water. It all began in 1998 when Bikoff had developed a cold and was not feeling to great. After taking some vitamin c and drinking some mineral in hopes to ease his discomfort he came up with the idea that would change his life forever. What would happen if he were able to take both at the same time? Thus began Vitamin Water. This unique style of beverage became known as enhanced bottle water. Vitamin Water was a series of drinks that consisted of different formulations was made with various vitamins and electrolytes, included some sugars, had zero high –fructose corn syrup and contained no salt. Each type of drink was recognizable by their vivid coloring and unique names such as “Revive”, “Balance” and “XXX”.
Selling To The Marketplace After selling to the New York marketplace, Bikoff looked to California to sell to their trendy population with active outdoor lifestyles. Without endorsing her, Paris Hilton was soon photographed holding Vitamin Water, which gave the company more media coverage then they expected. Soon after the use of celebrity endorsements became part of the brand’s promotional strategy. Glacéau decided that instead of paying these celebrities to promote their drinks, to offer them equity in the company subconsciously giving them incentive to want the brand to do well. In 2003, Glacéau engaged in gorilla marketing the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles and handed out free cases of the different flavors of Vitamin Water.
Building The Brand In 2001, just three years after Vitamin Water was invented, Bikoff claimed that the estimated revenue was $30 million dollars. He also began working with marketing and operations professionals as well as Mike Repole who worked on sales and later became head of the company. By 2003, there were 14 different flavors of Vitamin Water as well as various teas. Energy Brands at this time decided to give up on all of their other products besides Smart Water to focus on developing Vitamin Water. Glacéau no longer just sold to small grocery stores. They now had 200 independent distributers in 45 states and had five bottling plants. By 2005, Glacéau distributed to 50,000 outlets and had annual revenue of $350 million. The brand was considered to be the next billion-dollar brand and by far the fastest growing product.
New Ownership In 2006, India’s Tata Tea Ltd bought 30 percent stake in Energy Brands. Not only did this mean that the entire company was worth $2.2 Billion, but it also meant that they were now part of the global tea industry and sell to markets in India and the United Kingdom. However, the big deal came in 2007 when Energy Brands was traded to Coca-Cola Company for $4.1 billion. Glacéau would now be part of one of the top industries in the world.
Advertising History Though there are many different attempts throughout Vitaminwater’s history to create great advertising campaigns, very few of them have qualities that push the company to become a well-branded and leading marketer in the advertising world. We believe that Vitaminwater has created many great strategic positioning’s for the company; however they do not produce commercials and print advertisements to successfully support their claims. The media used in their campaigns consist of print ad, commercials, outdoor ads (billboards, bus stop, subways), celebrity endorsements and social network contests. Vitaminwater is also a serious offender of serial blundering. To prove this, we will discuss some of the main campaigns over the past ten years and why they were not successful. (See more campaigns on the time line).
“Try It” Campaign To begin, we will jump back to the 2007 “Try It” campaign. Their insight was that Vitaminwater was the combination of healthy product functionality and a healthy sense of fun as defined in the copy on every bottle. They approached this campaign with hopes to encourage people to try the unexpected. To do this, they had many celebrity endorsements (50 Cent, LeBron James and Kelly Clarkson) that within their commercials, tried things they normally would not do. They also developed posters with the words “try it” on the left and another phrase on the right describing wild things to try. This campaign was considered to have made Vitaminwater big and lead to the Coca-Cola acquisition that year. We believe the ideas were good but there’s still room for better execution.
Blankwater Campaign The next campaign we would like to discuss is the 2011 “Blankwater” campaign. The purpose of this campaign was to remind consumers when and why they needed Vitaminwater in their lives. The campaign created settings where celebrities talked about strange life situations that were fixed or enhanced by drinking Vitaminwater. They wanted Vitaminwater to be seen as your go-to drink in any life situation and your body’s wingman throughout the day. The concept and positioning behind this campaign could have been very effective. However, the visual effects in their commercials were too distracting and failed to get the message across.
Make Boring Brilliant Campign The final campaign one we would like to mention is the current campaign “Make Boring Brilliant”. This campaign went down a completely different direction compared to their previous strategies. It drew people’s attention to boring moments in their lives and offered to make them brilliant with Vitaminwater. The commercials featured rapper B.o.B. invited people to tweet about those moments and collaborated with partners such as collegehumor. com to turn them into “brilliant”. Through hundreds of tweets, they found many coming from a small town in Oregon called Boring and went down there to give the town a makeover which embodied the idea. This time the message got across, but they failed to link everything back to Vitaminwater. As a result, the campaign turned out to be badly branded. Also the commercials lacked brand cues. For example, nobody was actually opening or drinking a bottle of Vitaminwater to trigger the turning point from “boring” to “brilliant”. In summary, the main problem in Vitaminwater’s advertising history is that the unbranded
Situation Analysis Market Situation
Situation Analysis Target Users and Buyers
Situation Analysis Competitors
Competitors Overview According to the 2013 Mintel report on manufactured sales of flavored and/or enhanced bottled water Vitaminwater lead the pack with 315 million dollars in sales for 2012. Vitaminwater along with Vitaminwater Zero helped Coke claim the top spot with 512 million dollars in sales and a 47% market share. PepsiCo came in second with 379 million dollars in sales and 34% of the dollar market share. Rounding out the top three selling brands were Propel Zero (184 million) and SoBe Lifewater (135 million). Vitaminwater, Propel Zero and SoBe Lifewater all experience decrease in sales from 2011 to 2012. It’s worth mentioning that Vitaminwater Zero was one the few brands to experience as sales increase from 2011 to 2012.
Manufacturer sales of flavored and/or enhanced bottled water MULO sales of flavored still bottled water, by leading companies, 2011 and 2012 Company Brand
$million
%
%
percentage point
540.4
46.7
512.7
47.0
-5.1
0.3
Glaceau Vitaminwater
354.1
30.6
315.4
28.9
-10.9
-1.7
Glaceau Vitaminwater Zero
182.9
15.8
192.4
17.6
5.2
1.8
Other
3.5
0.3
4.9
0.4
40.6
0.1
Total
417.3
36.1
379.2
34.8
-9.1
-1.3
Propel Zero
191.9
16.6
184.7
16.9
-3.8
0.4
SoBe Lifewater Zero
50.8
4.4
40.7
3.7
-19.9
-0.7
27.8
2.4
18.4
1.7
-33.7
-0.7
2.6
0.2
—
—
-100.0
-0.2
122.8
10.6
112.8
10.3
-8.2
-0.3
121.9
10.5
112.8
10.3
-7.5
-0.2
7.9
11.9
1.2
Aquafina Flavorsplash Other
Kraft Total Foods Inc.
Total
Share change
%
SoBe Lifewater
Other
52 weeks Sales Market Market Ending change Share December 30, Share 2011-12 2012
$million Coca-Cola Total Co.
PepsiCo Inc.
52-weeks ending December 30, Year Ago
Capri Sun Roarin Waters
144.2
76.8
1,157.3
12.5
6.6
100.0
135.4
85.9
1,090.5
12.4
100.0
-6.1
-5.8
-
—
Propel Zero History
Introduced in 2000 as a beverage product of Gatorade and marketed by PepsiCo.
Sales and Market Share Propel Zero is ranked second in overall sales in manufacturer sales behind Vitaminwater. Based on the table above, Propel earned 184 million dollars with a 16.9% market share. The study showed that Propel Zero suffered a 3.8% decrease in sales from 2011 to 2012.
Products Propel was rebranded as Propel Zero in early 2011 to “focus on the ‘zero calorie’ description” (“Functional and Natural Ready-to-Drink Beverages in the U.S.”, Packaged Facts 2011). Propel Zero Water features 9 different flavors including Berry, Grape, Peach and Cranberry Lime.
Marketing & Branding According to their site “Propel Zero gives you vitamins C, E & B and antioxidants. So you can replenish, energize, and protect with zero calories and no added color” (propelzero. com). Propel which “decidedly less ‘sexy’ than Lifewater brand... is marketed more towards the athletic crowd than the frat house.” (“Functional and Natural Ready-to-Drink Beverages in the U.S.”, Packaged Facts 2011). The Propel Bottles features their signature Propel’s current tagline is “Replenish + Energize + Protect” (propelzero.com).
Situation Analysis Competitors
SoBe Lifewater History SoBe was founded in 1996 by John Bello and Tom Schwalm. The company began as the South Bend Beverage Company. In 2000, PepsiCo, Inc beat out Coca-Cola in purchasing SoBe water.
Sales and Market Share SoBe Lifewater ranked third in in overall sales in manufacturer sales behind Vitaminwater and Propel Zero. SoBe Lifewater earned 135 million dollars in sales with 16% in market shares. Along with Vitaminwater and Propel Zero, SoBe Lifewater also experienced a 6% decline in sales from 2011 to 2012.
Products SoBe currently features three different product lines (SoBe Lifewater, SoBe Lifewater Zero, and SoBe Teas & Fruit Flavored Elixirs). SoBe Lifewater features 8 different flavors including Orange Tangerine, Strawberry Kiwi and Mango Mandarian. SoBe’s Lifewater Zero, introduced in 2008 features eight different flavors including fuji apple pear, strawberry dragonfruit, and blood orange mango.
Branding & Marketing SoBe’s branding features a two-lizard logo. According to SoBe’s website Lifewater is “Nothing but Naturally Sweetened, Refreshing Flavor” (sobe.com). SoBe’s current marketing campaigns include video segments on each Lifewater and Lifewater Zero individual flavors. Another popular marketing campaign with SoBe Lifewater is their Skinsuit campaign which Andrew Katz, Marketing Director of SoBe, described the Skinsut campaigns as “Our message to SoBe fans: the lizard strikes again, offering you a new way to satisfy your insatiable thirst” (PRNewswire, Jan. 2011). The skinsuit ads began in 2010 and featured actresses Ashley Greene from the Twlight Series in 2010, Jessica Szhor from “Gossip Girl” in 2011 and Yvonne Strarhovski from “Chuck” in 2012.
National Environmental Trends
Situation Analysis National Environmental Trends
Positioning Recommendation
Creative Brief
Creative Executions