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| 'Nimbooz has been developed to suit Indian tastes' | | Q&A: Punita Lal, Executive Director (Marketing), PepsiCo India |
| Suvi Dogra / New Delhi Mar 01, 2009, 00:11 IST |
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PepsiCo India is making significant investments in infrastructure, R&D, brand support and capacity building as a part of its parent company’s $500-million (around Rs 2,500 crore) investment plan for the Indian market. The latest addition to PepsiCo’s product portfolio is packaged nimbu paani. Punita Lal, executive director (marketing), PepsiCo India, spoke to Suvi Dogra about the beverage major’s plans. Excerpts:
Why did you position your new nimbu paani offering — Nimbooz — under the 7Up brand, which is a carbonated soft drink?
We decided to experiment with brand 7Up as we hoped to expand the scope of the brand by providing more options in the lemon drink category. In that sense you can no longer call 7Up a carbonated drink only, since the brand now also offers a non-fizz, real lemon juice drink as well. So when a consumer wants a lemon drink, he has the choice of picking up either a 7Up or Nimbooz. In future, we could look at expanding the range by adding more offerings to address the different consumer needs and profiles. Nimbooz has been developed to suit Indian tastes and preferences in a ready-to-drink format that is both convenient and hygienic. The aim is to make Nimbooz available across 1 billion retail outlets.
Is PepsiCo now more focused on its non-carbonated portfolio?
While there is a significant opportunity in the non-carbonated category, we need to continue investing in our core brands. It is only when the core brands grow that gives us the ability to make further investments as new products do not generate enough revenue initially. Our non-carbonated portfolio has grown substantially from the earlier ratio of 10:90 (90 for carbonated soft drinks -CSD). This is a big change. We are now being able to grow our non-carbonated category even as our CSD business continues to grow.
The year 2008 was a difficult one in terms of inflation. Will pricing be a challenge this year?
We hope to stand by consumers by maintaining our prices at a time when they are feeling some pain given the economic situation. In fact, we have just taken some decisions on holding prices for our glass bottle offerings. Our Rs 20 PET bottle will we available at the same price point even as we face pressure on maintaining this level. These efforts should pay dividends.
With IPL season coming up, how does PepsiCo plan to leverage the opportunity?
PepsiCo has always had the ability to do great cricket marketing. We will certainly be doing some of it this year across brands, be it Pepsi or 7Up. IPL will be a good consumer engagement opportunity.
Why did PepsiCo feel the need to part with long standing brand ambassador Shahrukh Khan?
Shahrukh will always be part of Youngistaan as he will always be a part of PepsiCo.
Why has there been no buzz around energy drink SoBe since its launch last year?
SoBe is a premium product priced at Rs 75. We do not wish to sell SoBe through the one billion outlets as in the case of Nimbooz. Instead, SoBe needs to be present in only certain modern trade formats where the consumer understands and has knowledge of energy drinks. We want it to achieve a reasonable size and scale as the category is still nascent in the country.
With evolving portfolio, is brand building and sustaining growth for each of the brands a challenge?
While brand building is a challenge, it is also an opportunity. The key aspects to look at are relevance and differentiation. When you are in a situation of widening your portfolio, one should first identify the consumer need state and then work on providing options to satisfy it. This consumer need state could either be thirst quenching, nourishment, hydration or enjoyment or any other reason for which a beverage is consumed.
Ideally, we should be able to give the consumer a product that satisfies his beverage need, and at the same time, has the relevance of scale for us since we are not in a business of talking to 200 people but a consumer base that addresses millions. The strategy is to identify the size of the opportunity and then establish how the product you are introducing can be differentiated. It is the differentiation that finally helps us decide a product’s positioning. We should be able to answer more need states to be able to spread demand over the year instead of seasons.
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