Cadbury Beverages, Inc. is a beverage division
of Cadbury Schweppes PLC. They were a major global soft drink and confectionery
marketer who made worldwide sales of about $4.6 billion. Cadbury was given the
position of the world’s first soft drink producer, which can be traced back to
1783 in London. In 1989 Cadbury Schweppes PLC was one of the worlds largest multinational
firms and was ranked 457th in Business Week’s Global 1000. Their beverages accounted
for 60% of the company worldwide sales.
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In 1990 the executives have decided to focus on
initial attention on the Crush brand of fruit-flavored carbonated drinks, but
there were three problems that needed to be attended to: 1.) Immediate efforts
were needed to rejuvenate the bottling network for the Crush soft drink brand
2.) They had to sort through and figure out what the Crush brand equity is, how
the brand was built and develop a base positioning 3.) A new advertising and
promotion program for Crush had to be developed, including setting objectives,
developing strategies, and preparing preliminary budgets.
With the average American consuming more
than 45 gallons of soda in the year of 1989, the carbonated soft drink industry
was a $40+ billion industry with fierce competition in the United States.
However, of the numerous distributors that fight against each other for market
share, there are three major participants consisting of Coca Cola, PepsiCo, and
Dr. Pepper/Seven Up that account for 82% of the industry sales. These sales
account for the bottling of soda, the production of concentrates that are
essentially the bases of each soda, as well as the actual retail outlets where
these carbonated drinks are actually sold. Amongst these outlets, supermarkets
account for 40% of the total sales in the carbonated drink industry creating
fierce competition between rival brands.
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Before 1986, the average case volume for orange
flavored carbonated drinks was in-between 100 to 102 million cases. By 1986 the
case volume increased to 126 million, this was due to PepsiCo introducing
Mandarin Orange Slices and Coca-Cola introducing Minute Maid Orange. The
widespread distribution of these two brands along with heavy advertising and
promotion restored the market for orange flavored carbonated beverages. Orange
Crush had the lowest market share in the Orange soda market in 1989. In January 1990, Crush decided to focus more
of their efforts on the orange flavored carbonated beverage market. The three steps
the company took to re-launch Orange Crush was that first they needed to apply
efforts to revive the bottling network for the Orange Crush soft drink brand.
Secondly, they had to carefully consider how they were going to position Crush
in order to build on the existing customer market and provide opportunity development
of the Crush brand and its various flavors. Lastly, they needed to come up with
a new innovative advertising and promotion program, this included setting
objectives, developing strategies, and preparing initial budgets.
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| Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Orange_Crush_box.jpg |
In January 1990, there was a
complete revamp of Cadbury’s marketing strategy as it relates to the Crush
brand. First and foremost, the decision was made to focus on primarily the
orange flavor opposed to the others. About 66% of Crush’s sales volume consisted
of orange, so they decided to make it their priority. Next in the strategy was
to focus on reestablishing Crush’s bottling network, specifically the orange
crush. Third was to focus on strategic positioning to the existing customer
base. They felt it was key to do so because this would allow them to expand
their other flavors. Lastly, Cadbury approved an advertising and promotion
program not previously established.
A big portion of this revitalized strategy was to better
develop their bottling network. By mid-1990, 136 new bottler agreements had
been made. This allowed Crush to be represented in 75% of the orange soda
market. This led to more advertising and promotion support, and furthermore
allowed a more expansive reach for the company. Since Crush had high brand
awareness in major markets such as Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Miami, Los
Angeles, and Boston, advertising and promotion were not such uphill battles as
originally thought. Nevertheless, Crush grew increasingly tactful with
advertising and promotion expenditures to ensure their sustained growth. This
included tactics such as saving expenses on a per case basis for promotions,
and creating pro forma statements to properly forecast their actions.
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This past summer, Crush soda and “Fantastic
Four” teamed up to feature advertisements promoting both the soda and the new
“Fantastic Four” movie. Each Fantastic Four member was paired up with a
different flavor. Cans and bottles released during this campaign also featured
the faces of their superhero partner, and had codes that could be entered
online and customers could win tickets to see the new movie. Crush and
“Fantastic Four” are both attempting to rebrand themselves. The new reboot of
the “Fantastic Four” was an attempt to be taken more serious than the previous
series of movies. Crush is too, trying been seen as a more serious competitor
in the soda market (now as part of the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group).
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| Source: http://screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/Fantastic-Four-Crush-Soda-Pop-Cans.jpg |
http://screenrant.com/fantastic-four-reboot-crush-soda-pop-cans/
“‘Fantastic Four’ Reveals New Merchandising with Crush Soft
Drink Cans”
Jeremy Owens 6/20/2015
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