ICFAI National College, Jalgaon Chirag Shah MBA-III SEM

Pepsi Blue: Its failure and strategies for relaunching

PepsiCo, Inc. is currently one of the most successful consumer products company in the world

Revenues exceeding $30 billion & More than 480,000 employees

Forbes Names PepsiCo Among Its Best Big Companies(2008)

Pepsi Cola Journey

Chief competitor

Pepsi Blue is a soft drink made by PepsiCo North America

Launched in mid-2002 and designed to compete with Coca-Cola's Vanilla Coke

The taste of Pepsi Blue was like cotton candy with a berry and much more sugary and syrupy than regular cola

The move to make a brightly-colored version of the flagship Pepsi brand was boosted by 2001's introduction of Mountain Dew Code Red, which had bumped PepsiCo's Mountain Dew division sales up 6% It was launched to compete with Coca colas Vanilla Coke The Indian Cricket Team was having a successful run after the 2003 Cricket World Cup. The color of their jersey

was blue & therefore PepsiCo attempted with Pepsi Blue to support the team and its mega fan club

People

Physical Evidence

Process

Product: A Cola-Berry fusion with Blue 1, Red 40 coloring agents Place: Mexico, Panama, Colombia , Costa Rica, India, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Canad

It was made available in 300 ml returnable glass bottles priced at Rs 8 500 ml PET bottles, at Rs 15 Non-returnable, 250-ml Pepsi bottles, priced at Rs 12 each

Promotion

Heavily promoted by PepsiCo with advertisements by the Indian cricket team

Advertisements by the pop singer Britney Spears and the bands Sev and Papa Roach

ShahRukh Khan as a brand ambassador & also popular Telugu film star Pawan Kalyan

Scheme: To complement the launch of Pepsi Blue, the company came up with a major promotional drive `Pepsi Predikta Jackpot Movie Selling: Advertisement in the movie The Italian Job (2003 film) Indian Tagline: Drink Pepsi Blue. Cheer for the men in blue. train vi.mp4

Use of Brand ambassadors like, ShahRukh Khan,Telgu popular actor Pawan Kalyan Indian cricket team for advertisement

Process

The taste of Pepsi Blue was like cotton candy with a berry and much more sugary and syrupy than regular cola It was tinted using Blue 1, a highly controversial coloring agent banned in numerous countries at the time Sugary taste was not accepted by the consumers. video imp.mp4

Sales

2002

2003 Time

2004

Pepsi Blue could come up with the different taste than berry flavor,i.e. strong fizzy cola to attract youth segment Advertisements focusing on repositioning of Pepsi blue which has eliminated the sugary taste factor The taste should be immediately change, since its competitors taking due advantage because of Pepsis sweeter taste

Moreover, Pepsi should start creating its awareness about duplication of its products these days